History Of Gas Scooters
J Larry Alan
Gas scooters have come a long way over the past 50 years. They
are functional, fun, convenient and cheap. What more could you
ask for?
The first patents for scooters go back as far as 1921. The
Razor scooter was later developed by Gino Tsai in Shanghai,
Taiwan and became an instant hit with the public. It didn't
take long for motor scooter popularity to expand all over the
globe.
Even before 1950 there were as many as 110,000 scooters on the
road in Italy alone. It has been just a little over 50 years
since the Vespa-Douglas Corporation in the UK sold their first
gas scooters. The Douglas corporation was on the verge of
bankruptcy when they first began selling their gas scooters. It
was a big hit at the 1950 Motorcycle Show and saved the company
from possible financial ruin.
From 1950 to 1958 Vespa sold over 125,000 of their gas powered
scooters in the UK. Why the great success? During this period
the European countries didn't have a great deal of money and
there was not much gas available to the public. Due to the
scarcity of gasoline and the high gas mileage of the gas motor
scooter it's popularity quickly escalated.
It didn't take long for the Italian models (the Piaggio from
Vespa and the Lambretta from Innocenti) to branch out to other
countries. In France they became so popular the French tried to
get in on the boom by manufacturing their own. By the early to
mid 1950s the sale of gas scooters climbed to about 1 million a
year in France alone.
Other countries wanted to profit from the newest craze and
tried to climb on the band wagon. While some were successful
others were not. Germany began to manufacture larger touring
models, but this did not satisfy the public in the way the
smaller, cheaper and more fuel-efficient models from Italy and
France did. These smaller models were extremely popular in the
European market.
Tourist Scooters Manufacturers in Germany built some very
strong and powerful versions and were the first to install
electric starters. These larger versions were great for
traveling, touring and even racing, but were not as popular as
the smaller, cheaper, more efficient models used for traveling
shorter distances around town.
Vespa began marketing a couple of very popular gas powered
scooters from Piaggio, the GS 125cc and the GS 150cc. These
were improved versions of the earlier models for several
reasons. The biggest reason is probably because the heavy gear
mechanism rods were replaced by smaller and lighter cables.
France's Roussey Scooters tried to one-up the Italian
competition by coming out with a 175cc model. These were very
nice vehicles and included the first water-cooled engines along
with other new features, but because it had a pull-start it
could not compete with the newer models from Italy that were
already offering versions with electric starts.
As these wonderful vehicles have evolved over the years they
have become increasingly more popular all over the world. Today
they are everywhere. They are cheap to purchase, economical to
operate, and are very handy and functional. These are not toys
and are genuinely a lot of fun to ride. There are electric, gas
powered, foldable, mobility and utility scooters.
The electric types are often used by kids and teens, but are
also popular with the elderly and handicapped. Models for the
handicapped are usually called mobility scooters. Folding
varieties can be folded up and conveniently stored under desks,
in closets or in other tiny areas and utility types are used for
many different purposes. They are more popular than go karts,
mini bikes or go carts. Scooters, sometimes called mopeds or go
peds, are very functional, convenient and are here to stay.
About The Author: J Larry Alan is a freelance author providing
information about a variety of scooter topics including
http://www.my-gas-scooters.com,
http://www.my-gas-scooters.com/gaspoweredscooters.html and
http://www.my-gas-scooters.com/gasmotorscooters.html.
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