After the Sec­ond World War in Italy the car­mak­ers realised that it would be a long time before every­one who needed a car would be able to afford one. So the smart Ital­ians switched to design­ing and pro­duc­ing motor scoot­ers: these light, afford­able, ergonomic Ves­pas, a low cost prod­uct avail­able to everybody.

Need­less to say, Vespa was the brand of the time (and arguably still is) and it grew more and more pop­u­lar across Europe, until, in early 1950s, it reached the USSR. All of a sud­den this youth­ful and cheery means of trans­porta­tion coin­cided with the Khrushchev Thaw and it was decided to launch the Soviet line of motor scoot­ers. Machin­ery wise, it was viable: since the war times, a few fac­to­ries had been idle, so it was only a mat­ter of design.

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