The mayor of Genoa has decreed that Vespas that were built before 1999 will be banned from the city’s streets in an effort to reduce air pollution.
Italian cities have struggled with unusually high levels of smog this winter, a result of unseasonably dry, warm and windless weather.
Marco Doria wants Genoa to be off-limits to older Vespas between 7am and 7pm, Monday to Friday.
The prohibition has infuriated the city’s estimated 20,000 “scooteristi”, the owners of the nippy little two-wheelers, who are bombarding the city authorities with messages of protest.
Motorbikes, many of them Vespas, line the street in Genoa (Photo: Alamy)
To add insult to injury, Genoa is the birthplace of Enrico Piaggio, who invented the Vespa 70 years ago.
“This should not be happening in 2016, the 70th anniversary of the birth of the Vespa by a Genoese local, Enrico Piaggio,” Vittorio Vernazzano of the Vespa Club of Genoa, told Corriere della Sera newspaper.
Angry Vespa drivers are mobilising on social media, rallying under the Twitter hashtag #lamiavespanonsitocca – “Don’t touch my Vespa”.
They have adopted the combative slogan “E nata a Genova, muore a Genova” – “It was born in Genoa and it’s dying in Genoa.”
An online petition has been created, called “Let’s keep Vespas in Genoa”, with organisers arguing that the distinctive vehicle is “a symbol of the city”.
Developed as a cheap mode of transportation that would help get Italy back on its feet after the Second World War, the Vespa is an icon of Italian industrial design.
The name means “wasp” in Italian – a nod to the distinctive, buzz-saw sound made by its engine.
Sales received a huge boost in the 1950s after Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn scooted around Rome in the romantic comedy Roman Holiday.
Genoa has the most scooters per capita of any Italian city – around 180,000 locals whizz around on Vespas, mopeds and motorcycles, out of a population of 600,000.
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