Named after the sound of its engine, resembling a wasp (or vespa in Italian), the Vespa is the world’s most iconic scooter. Since it was first manufactured in 1946 the Vespa has travelled the world over capturing the imaginations and winning over the hearts of millions. Much more than just a means of transportation, the Vespa is a statement, an identity, a lifestyle. Though perhaps most often associated with Italy, British mods, or celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, Cambodia too has a history with the sought-after scooter. Nora Lindstrom delves into the Penh’s Vespa scene – and falls in love.
The Vespa romance starts in post-World War II Italy. Following the war, the Piaggio company’s aeronautical plants lay in ruins and Enrico Piaggio, son of founder Rinaldo, decided to branch out into transportation. He paired up with aeronautical engineer and designer Corradino D’Ascanio, whose avant-garde design for a scooter had already been rejected by another manufacturer, Innocenti, who later started producing competing Lambrettas. Legend has it that D’Ascanio was not a friend of motorcycles, considering them awkward and uncomfortable. Using his aeronautical experience, however, he designed a monocock frame scooter for the post-war era that was low and easy to ride for both men and women, kept the driver clean, and allowed for easy changing of wheels.
Thus the Vespa was born and patented in 1946 as “a rational, comfortable motorcycle offering protection from mud and dust without jeopardising requirements of appearance and elegance.” It was a ground-breaking design. Though it wasn’t exactly love at first sight between the Vespa and the public, it did not take long for first Italy, and then the world, to become utterly enamoured with the newcomer. From the very start, Vespa Clubs were integral to the Vespa experience. Enrico Piaggio started them as part marketing ploy, part service network. By the early 50s the clubs had over 50,000 members. In a changing world, riding a Vespa became synonymous with freedom and progress. Within a decade of unveiling the first scooter, Vespas were being manufactured in 13 countries and marketed in another 101.
By 1960 two million Vespas had been manufactured. A decade later that number had doubled. As the Berlin Wall came down, over ten million Vespas, as well as a multitude of knock-offs were grazing the earth. To this day, another six million have been sold, about 70 of them are in Cambodia.
Vespas in Cambodia
According to a well-known story among Vespa enthusiasts in Cambodia, a local Vespa owner, upon hearing the Khmer Rouge was advancing on Phnom Penh, packed his scooter in a box and threw it in the Tonle Sap. No one knows whether he wanted to keep the Khmer Rouge from destroying his beloved scooter or he meant to retrieve it later. What we do know is that sometime in the early 80s a scuba diver chanced upon the box and the Vespa was retrieved. “My father told me the story,” says Phnom Penh’s only working Vespa mechanic Bo. “It was maybe 1983 or 1985. Someone found the box and asked my father to go there to take the Vespa.”
Having started his shop in 1980, Bo’s father was at that time one of a dozen mechanics in Phnom Penh specialising in patching up the Vespas that in one way or another had survived the Khmer Rouge years. Prior to Pol Pot, Vespas were a common means of transportation in Cambodia. As the country slowly recovered from the regime, the surviving scooters were for a while still in regular use, until new scooters and motorcycles became affordable. Bo says there was a lot of money to be made from fixing Vespas. Though other shops have closed, Bo followed in his father’s footsteps and now has his hands full servicing the remaining scooters in the capital.
Like all over the world, Vespas evoke a certain nostalgia in Cambodia too. “Older people in Cambodia still consider Vespas so cool, so cute. Always when I drive past they say, ‘So cute, so cute’. It reminds them of when they were young,” says Tong Soprach, proud Vespa rider and organiser of Phnom Penh’s Vespa Club. “They like to talk about the Vespa they had in their youth. At that time, it was easy to flirt with the girls if you rode a Vespa, but now for me it’s the opposite.” Clearly current Khmer youth lacks an appreciation for the Vespa’s sex appeal.
Thirty-two-year old Soprach’s first memory of a Vespa is from when he was a boy. “When I was around five or six, after the Khmer Rouge, I found just the body of a Vespa, not a motor or anything, and I started to play on it with my friend every day,” he says. “One day it was suddenly gone, but ever since then I wanted one.”
Acquiring one was however no mean feat. Convincing his family of the virtues of an old, restore
d scooter as opposed to a new and modern one was at first tricky. “The worry was my mum, she didn’t like it. She said that ‘The Vespa is not modern, not attractive’. She wanted me to get something new.” Then, as she was coming home for a wedding, Soprach’s mother was hauled off a moto by a mugger. Though unharmed, she started to appreciate the safety of the Vespa, as her son showed her the built-in locker on his newly acquired Taiwan-made 1980s Vespa PX. Though Soprach may not attract local girls with his scooter, his choice of theme for the Vespa nevertheless gets its share of attention. As a dedicated ‘Gooner’, Soprach’s scooter is pimped up accordingly. “A lot of Arsenal fans have seen my Vespa and once they’ve found out who the owner is they’ve hugged me and thanked me,” he says.
The Cool Kids’ ClubAccording to Soprach, only four vintage Vespa models are available in Cambodia ¬– Vespa Super and Vespa Sprint, the production of which started in the 60s, as well as the classic Vespa PX from the late 70s and 80s, and Vespa T5. Many were manufactured in either India or Taiwan, two of the many countries to which Piaggio has licensed production. Amongst enthusiasts, the older, or original, models (meaning they were in Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge) are generally more coveted and fetch higher prices than those imported from Vietnam at a later date, though Bo points out the latter are often easier to fix.
Regardless of model, all Vespa owners are equally invited to join in the celebratory scooter rallies. The first was a Halloween ride held on Oct. 29, 2006. Since then rallies have been organised on an ad hoc basis, generally to commemorate a particular event, such as International Women’s Day or Independence Day. Recent months, however, have seen the re-emergence of the Phnom Penh Vespa Club. Events will now be organised on every last Sunday of the month.
Ben Heath, who with Soprach has coordinated many of the Vespa-related activities in Cambodia, says the club is mainly for socialising and having fun. “We’re not ‘purists’, we don’t really know a lot about Vespas,” he says. “There are a few guys who know more technological aspects, like about engine parts, but for the majority of us we’re not technical or mechanical, we just like to socialise and ride a Vespa.” Ben himself was a complete novice to the world of Vespas when he first came to Cambodia. “I had no interest in scooters or motorbikes at all,” he says. “It was only because me and some colleagues had seen them around. On a whim we decided to go to the shop and ended up buying some Vespas.” Initially, he was terrified of driving around, but terror soon turned into enjoyment. “There’s nothing like riding a Vespa around Phnom Penh, the craziness of the traffic... I get a buzz from it.”
Despite his love affair, Ben accepts that Vespas are not that practical. They can be trickier to ride because of the wrist gear, they often have problems starting up, and because they have two-stroke engines, oil must be added mechanically to the petrol. Yet Ben is unwilling to focus on the downsides. “They’re actually very resilient, once you get over the getting started issue – they’re hardy bikes,” he says.
A Lifestyle Choice
Unlike Ben, Adrian Bebbington, better known as Bev or DJ ClockWork Soul, has had a long affair with scooters. “I’m actually a Lambretta man,” he admits. As these are unavailable in Cambodia he settled for a Vespa. His beautifully restored 1968 model is from the same year he was born. Despite initial hesitation Bev confesses to having fallen in love with it. A scooter-man since his early teens, Bev is well-versed in the history of scooters, and the unique way in which they tie in with music and fashion. “In England there’s a really massive scene. In fact there’s been a scene since the mods in the 1960s,” he says. “I think it’s fair to say that the U.K. has been the leading scooter scene in the world really.”
Bev himself caught the mod revival scene in the 80s, during which up to 90 scooter rallies were held annually in the U.K., sometimes with as many as 30,000 participants. Though the rise of Nazi skinheads killed the scene for a while, the last decade has seen a resurgence. “There’s a lot of guys my age who had scooters years ago, who got married, had kids, got a mortgage, and then bought themselves a scooter again,” he says. “Now all of a sudden there’s quite a big scene.” A DJ by trade, he hopes to introduce the music dimension to the scene, as exemplified by a recent Vespa rally, which culminated in the Penh’s first Northern Soul party at Winking Frog in May.
Alan Haire, proprietor of the Penh’s Green Vespa bar, wishes he’d got into the scene during his corporate days in London and Dublin. “It would have saved me an absolute fortune,” he says. Alan bought his green 1965 Vespa on his very first day in Cambodia in 2004, and decided to call and decorate his bar accordingly. “I bought a green vespa, and I think the name [Green Vespa] is better than the Green King, the Green Lion, or the green whatever, and it’s quite an original name for an Irish-British pub,” he says. Following mechanical problems and a mishap or two, Alan no longer rides his scooter, which is now simply an icon for the popular bar. Like so many other Vespa-riders, however, he is not quite ready to give up on his affair with the two-wheeler. “The ones around Phnom Penh now are showing their age and looking a bit worse for wear,” he says. “But if there was an influx of new ones I’d probably bite the bullet and buy a new one.”
As Dead as a Vespa?
The future of Vespas in Cambodia is however in doubt. Coveted by expats, many have already been shipped out of the country. According to Bo there are none coming in. “Some may be found in the provinces, but otherwise no more. If you take them all, then there will be no more Vespas in Phnom Penh.” Bev contrasts what is happening in the kingdom with just across the border in Thailand. “It’s really sad, because lots of westerners are buying Vespas, and when they leave they just ship them out. Whereas in Thailand, the scene is getting bigger and bigger because people are bringing them in. Here in a few years time there won’t be anything left.”
There seems to be consensus among Vespa enthusiasts that new, modern Vespas are simply too expensive for the market here. “You can buy new models second hand in Phnom Penh now, but they cost around US$3,000, so people think ‘Oh for that, I can get a car’,” says Bo. Alan says he would love to be the first owner of a brand new Vespa in the capital, but doubts that would be money well spent. Others are less interested in the new scooters – for Ben and Soprach it’s all about the old, restored models. Restoration of Vespas in Cambodia however poses its own problems, particularly as authentic spare parts are not always available. Many Vespa enthusiasts in the West are dubious about Vespas that have been restored in Asia, and heated debates rage on internet forums over the pros and cons of importing scooters from places like Vietnam.
“A couple of years ago, I was living in Malaysia and bought a scooter there and exported it home. I was going to start an export business,” Bev explains. “But this guy in London told me not to touch them with a bargepole, because they bodge them there.” He knows well how scooter enthusiasts in the U.K. will only appreciate restorations done with genuine parts, but thinks that in places like Cambodia you have to make do with what is available. “At the end of the day, if the scooter works, the scooter works,” he says. “I would love for all the parts in my Vespa to be genuine Italian parts, but you can’t do that here.” He is also full of admiration for the resourcefulness of Bo and his father. “It’s really interesting watching them work. Whenever I get them working on my scooter it’s amazing, they just make do with what they’ve got.”
Though many younger Cambodians seem able to resist the charm of the Vespa, Bo thinks this may have less to do with the design, and more to do with price and aspirations for modernity. Ben and Soprach point out that the popular Honda Fino has a Vespa-like design, suggesting Bo’s assertion has some weight. In addition, getting registration papers for restored scooters can be difficult, something that may deter some potential buyers. As for Vespas currently available, the lack of supply has driven prices up so that 80s models fetch around US$500, while 60s ones go for as much as US$1,000. Compare that to Soprach’s Vespa PX, which he bought for a lowly US$150 in 2004. Still, should you be helplessly smitten with the monocock scooter, ask around and you may just be able to find yourself a set of wheels and join the cool and desirable Phnom Penh Vespa set.
Green Vespa, 95 Sisowath Quay Tel: 012 887 228. The popular expat haunt is covered in Vespa paraphernalia, including photos from the rare Piaggio 50th Anniversary Vespa Calendar featuring a variety of celebrities on Vespas. Also sells original Vespa memorabilia.
Kim Hong Vespa, 341 Street 217. Bo’s shop where you can get your Vespa fixed, as well as enquire about scooters for sale.
Phnom Penh Vespa Club meets every last Sunday of the month, contact Tong Soprach on:
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