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Vespax$14.83
  (8 reviews)
Best Price: $29.99 $14.83
From Roman Holiday to Quadrophenia, the Vespa scooter has long been a symbol of youthful independence as well as one of the most recognizable pop culture icons of the 20th century. Immortalized as a design classic, the ever-growing ranks of Vespa dealers and scooter clubs worldwide attest to its enduring popularity at the street level. For the first time, the complete history of this chic mode of transport is celebrated in Vespa: Style in Motion. Fully authorized by and drawn from the archives of its manufacturer, Piaggio, this mighty volume tells the Vespa's story from its birth, right after World War II, to the brand new Granturismo model. Vespa is filled with hundreds of film stills, advertisements, and period photographs, offering a visual homage for any fan of Italian flair. Specifications and diagrams of all 41 scooter models, plus in-depth profiles of 15 classic Vespas, provide a detailed reference for true aficionados. Always in vogue, the Vespa remains the ride of choice for hipsters and internationalists everywhere. This, for them, is the last word.
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Customer Reviews
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Highway to Heaven for Vespa-holics!!
By A2J6VD74MODBEF on 2004-04-04
As a confirmed "Vespa-holic" [I currently own a Vespa Granturismo. Earlier, I have owned both a Vespa ET-4 and a Vespa ET-2], this is the BEST coffee table book I have EVER seen on my beloved scooter family by Piaggio. Wonderful, documented history. Great photography. This tome oozes quality. Moreover, it is an outstanding price-value at the debut cost which is far below that of some of its lesser predecessors. This is not a mechanic's guide to the repairs or restoration of the Vespa. As the sub-title reads: "style in motion." If you are lucky enough to already possess a Vespa, you will want this book for the center piece of your library. If you are not yet fortunate to be a Vespa owner, this volume is a "must have" as your shopping guide to the various models before you make your final scooter purchase decision. Happy Scootering!
WARNING!!!
By A1R04GCF2R7M45 on 2004-03-01
Contains a fairly comprehensive history of Vespa scooters with some nice pics, and a good overview of the distinguishing characteristics of each model, even the layout is better than average for scooter books BUT ....I JUST BOUGHT THIS BOOK IN ITALY LAST MONTH UNDER A DIIFERENT TITLE AND AUTHOR!!!! If I had known that, I would have rated it more highly because it IS a good book, but as it stands, I'm a little irritated about owning two copies. AND as far as I can tell, Elissa Stein had nothing to do with this book, so Amazon has some highly misleading information posted, especially when you combine it with a re-release of a book that's only a year old, and which already came in an english-language version, with a new cover and title. OOOOh, but I'm pissed...Note, to be fair, no web booksellers I've seen are warning people about this, so I suppose it's understandable that Amazon hasn't had their attention called to it yet, but they ARE the only ones I've seen who misattribute the author...
Great Value, but...
By A1V4JRN775T7L1 on 2004-12-13
I've never written a review for Amazon before, but after buying this book and reading it cover to cover, I felt compelled to air my criticisms somewhere. Overall, I thought that it is one of the best books on the subject.
Being a Vespa owner, I was really impressed with the technical content and COLOR photos. It's the essays and figure captions that irritated me. The figure captions were frequently so vague that I couldn't tell which picture they were referring to, which is a problem because they are not co-located with the picture.
Also, many of the essays were really hard to understand, frequently too short (when they were interesting) or too long (when they were boring) and presumed a lot of knowledge of Italian 20th century history. So, I failed to get the point of many of them.
Believe me, I read these articles very closely trying very hard to get the author's point, but many of them were written in an artsy style, which was almost incomprehensible at times. So, it could be very frustrating to read. I can only conclude that they were translated from Italian and something was lost along the way.
All that being said, I still think it is worth the price for the photos and technical articles.
A book worthy of its subject
By A3APEIJOQXE142 on 2005-01-28
I rarely give 5 stars to a product, but this one is flawless. I bought this book to learn about the various vintages of Vespa so I could make an informed choice when buying one. Given the beauty of this scooter, I wanted a book of similar quality, and I was not disappointed.
This book has explained everything about the company and its products together with their long history of excellence in an easy to read, beautifully laid out volume. I now know which Vespa I want: ALL OF THEM!
2005[?] update
By A43EXOF4OBAVC on 2006-02-27
The copy I received in late January '06 seems to be an update on the original Chronicle Books edition of 2004. The newer edition has last chapters that refer to the 250 GTS model. There are a few typo's and printing errors that I did not notice in the earlier book.
Overall - this is one of the very few scooter books I have actually paid money to own. [I have interlibrary borrowed many others.] The Italian-to-English translation is puzzling here and there, but the spirit of the work gave me a deeper understanding of the sociological impact of the machine on culture and Piaggio on Italy.
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