Lambretta Scooter - Talk about scooters sure most people the name Vespa as two wheels of the most famous in the world. The Italian made machine was indeed received tremendous response, but there is also another popular scooter brand, namely Lambretta.
The early history of the building of Lambretta in 1922 made by Ferdinando Innocenti and the name of the motorcycle was taken from an area on the outskirts of Milan. The Lambretta name actually comes from the Lambro river that actually flows through his Milanese factory.
The Lambretta story begins with the name of Ferdinando Innocenti, an Italian businessman who intends to become a major entrepreneur at the time. In the early 1920s he moved to Rome to try and start a tubular steel mill. Within a few years the Innocenti's company was renowned throughout Europe for the quality of their work and they soon outgrow their plants in Rome and then move to Milan.
Everything becomes gloriously until World War 2 broke out and Italy found itself involved in the heat of battle. Innocenti's Milanese factory was bombed many times and left in ruins after the war. Share the same vision as Piaggio Vespa fame, Innocenti saw the need for a new form of transportation to the Italian people. The roads were all shattered and many of the country's infrastructure was destroyed.
At that time, people also do not have money, so Innocenti decided that the country will require a new form of cheap transport can offer a bit more protection and stability than a motorbike. Using his wealth of experience in the steel tube industry, Innocenti modified his production to produce scooters from tubular steel and the first Lambretta scooters was produced in 1947. It was difficult to keep up with demand as popularity of scooters really took off in a way that could not Innocenti imagine. Within a few years, more than 90,000 Lambretta scooters were produced in a year.
Unfortunately, the good times did not last long because at the end of the 1960s combined event sealed the fate of this Innocenti's beloved scooter. In 1966, the great man himself died and his son, Luigi, took over management of the company. Although Luigi was capable of running the company, some factors beyond of his control conspired to end the Lambretta legacy.
Ferdinando Innocenti's death also left a series of managers started their own personal power struggle within the company. In the factory that Innocenti built, production was slowly stopped. The production line of the last scooter model was sold to an Indian company but also bring to an end production and so production of the Lambretta ended forever in the early 1970's.
Lambretta and Vespa scooter became a cultural icon in the 1950s and 1960s. Although the Vespa continues to this day, Lambretta sadly ceased production some time ago. However, in a way this has made the Lambretta more desirable than the Vespa because there are only a few of them.
