This film was made by Vespa enthusiast Andrew Bryden, who can be seen in the film riding his red scooter, wearing blue overalls, a white hat and sunglasses.  Talking on the ITV programme The Way We Were , Andrew Bryden explains how they assembled at Woodhouse Moor, Leeds, and made their way down Woodhouse Lane into the city centre before ending up at Roundhay Park. The film provides a fascinating picture of a significant aspect of social life in the 1950s: the motorcycle club and rally. Many...

This film was made by Vespa enthusiast Andrew Bryden, who can be seen in the film riding his red scooter, wearing blue overalls, a white hat and sunglasses.  Talking on the ITV programme The Way We Were , Andrew Bryden explains how they assembled at Woodhouse Moor, Leeds, and made their way down Woodhouse Lane into the city centre before ending up at Roundhay Park.

The film provides a fascinating picture of a significant aspect of social life in the 1950s: the motorcycle club and rally. Many motorcycle and scooter clubs were formed in the 1950s, and they become a forum for people to come together and put on events. Vespa clubs popped up throughout Europe, and by 1952 worldwide Vespa Club membership had surpassed 50,000.  The British Vespa Club, itself starting in 1952, is the oldest continuous club of its kind.  In the film clubs can be seen from all over the country, from as far afield as Southend: which, given the comparative slow speed of scooters, is testimony to the enthusiasm of their owners. Both scooters and motorbikes sold in their tens of thousands during this decade. 

Vespas started in 1946, manufactured by Piaggio of Pontedera, Italy, with a design by aeronautical engineer Corradino D'Ascanio. The original design follows the Cushman scooters that the US used in Italy during the Second World War to get around difficult terrain.  The idea was for a vehicle that was easy to drive for both men and women, be able to carry a passenger, not get its driver's clothes dirty, and was relatively cheap. And, of course, typical of Italian design, to be very pleasing on the eye.  The Vespa scooter – Italian for "wasp", so nicknamed by Enrico Piaggio because of its sound and shape – fit the bill.  Within 10 years over a million Vespas had been produced. During this time there was competition from Lambrettas – noted by Andrew Bryden – which started production in 1948, but which ceased production in Italy in 1972. 
 

By the mid-1950s Vespas were being manufactured in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and Spain. Helped by Audrey Hepburn riding side-saddle with Gregory Peck on a Vespa in the film Roman Holiday (1952), by 1956 one million had been sold, two million by 1960. Featured in this film is the Vespa 150 GS, introduced in 1955, with a 150cc engine, a long saddle, and the faired handlebar-headlamp unit. Other types in the film may well be the VP150 and the PX, which only stopped production in 2008 due to EU emission laws. Although sales kept up during the sixties, this was mainly due to the mods, with many commuters buying the 4-stroke Honda C50 which came out in 1958 and went on to become the biggest selling motorbike of all time. There were major dips in sales during the 1990s, but the trendy ET2, as driven by Jamie Oliver, has helped turned things around. What with increased traffic, congestion charges, and rising petrol costs, Vespas, along with other small motorcycles, are once again becoming popular. (‘Happy Jack’ provides a history on the Vespa Club website: see References).
For an overview of Vespas, and some fantastic pictures, see the excellent book by Athos Bigongiali and Bill Buford which covers all the models, technical details and where they can be seen in films (References).
 


Most people probably associate scooters with the mods, who made them a major part of their lifestyle. Although the film predates the emergence of the mods – they were just emerging in London at about this time – it does show why scooters became popular with them.  Many in the film are smartly dressed, and one can imagine some of the younger ones inhabiting the Northern Soul scene — maybe some of those from the Sheffield club, seen in the film, went to the famous Mojo Club which opened in Sheffield in 1964.  Being smartly dressed was (is, mods live on) a defining part of being a mod, and many of the riders in the film are smartly dressed – something rare for the average biker.  Indeed, many aren’t even wearing helmets or gloves – helmets weren’t made compulsory until 1973 (although a surprising number wear them anyway).  In 1959 the stylistic influence of those migrating from the West Indies had yet to have its effect on white youth; and the importation of jazz, rhythm and blues and soul from the States was only just beginning.
 

The mods were (are) famously fastidious about being smart and wearing smart clothes: defining their own fashion, again using styles borrowed from Italy and the States. One advantage of scooters, over motorbikes, is that they enable the rider to wear ordinary clothes that can be kept clean.  It is noticeable how many women are riding scooters, and not just in trousers. Also of interest is the number of younger people wearing sunglasses, a year before Foster Grant – who developed sunglasses in 1929 – launched their big promotion in 1960. 
 

Another advantage is that scooters too can easily be kept clean, and look far more stylish than most British bikes at the time (although, of course, this is a matter of opinion!). In fact, so well looked after were scooters, that it would be no surprise to see some of these same scooters at one of the many scooter rallies that still take place today.
 

Interestingly, although some scooters are decked out in badges, there aren’t any with lots of mirrors: apparently the trend for this only really took off after the film Quadrophenia, based on the album of the same name by The Who (although the scooter driven by the character played by Sting, and by ‘Jimmy’, in Quadrophenia, was a Lambretta). It is no coincidence that both the favoured style of clothes and the scooters originated from Italy. However, some mods looked down on the ‘scooter-boys’, who wore Parkers (often with a CND and Who target logos on the back), when riding their scooters.
 

The group in the film who dress up in pinstripe suites, bowlers and umbrellas (and then undress!) seem to be parodying the city-gent look; perhaps influenced by the British satirisation of the middle class that was just beginning in the late ‘50s (even Stead from The Avengers, whilst perfecting this style, turns it on its head).  Maybe they were inspired by Samuel Beckett’s play, Waiting for Godot, first performed in England a few years earlier, where all four principle characters wear a bowler hat!
 

Another noticeable feature of the film is that the rally is clearly a family event, with people of all ages in attendance (those in yellow are the rally stewards). One wonders whether it would be the same by 1964, when the first clashes between mods and rockers took place – at Clacton on Easter weekend. On the Monday following the Daily Telegraph headlined, ‘Day of Terror by Scooter Groups’. The reports, carried all over the world, were wildly exaggerated, and for several years these clashes, the most well known at Brighton, became annual events, causing much uproar in the media at the time (see Cohen, References). 


References

 


Athos Bigongiali and Bill Buford, Vespa: Italian Street Style, 2nd edition, Scriptum, 2006
Stanley Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral panics: the Creation of the Mods and Rockers, Routledge, 3rd ed., 2002.


Len Markham, ‘Talking about my generation’, Down Your Way, Issue 111, March 2007.

For a good site on all things Vespa
Veteran Vespa Club

Vespa Club of Britain (includes list if films with vespas in them, and actors riding vespas)

Excellent site for anyone interested in the mods

Another interesting site, more focused on today’s mods