Vespa 400 '59

• Nice convertible!
• Nice patina!
• Sympathetic looks!
• Pure nostalgia
• Two-stroke

In the early 1950s, the Italian company Piaggio was worried about its two-wheelers. Indeed, there was talk in Italy of making a driving licence compulsory for scooters over 125cc. The logical next step for Piaggio was that if people had to get a driving licence anyway, they might as well buy a car.

The company therefore developed a small city car with a tiny two-cylinder. Unfortunately, its success was checked off by Fiat, which saw a potential rival for its 'nuova 500'. Piaggio wanted no trouble with the Italian giant and decided to outsource the development of the little car to the French company ACMA. That completed the study work in no time and gave the little car another 14hp two-stroke twin-cylinder, mated to a three-speed manual gearbox.The little Vespa 400 was unveiled with much fanfare in 1957 (Fangio, Chiron and Behra were present at the press show) and went into production towards the end of that year. Unfortunately, customers were not at all pleased with the tricky job of mixing petrol and oil that the two-stroke engine required. So sales struggled to take off. Two years later, the company corrected the mistake with an automatic mixing system. In 1960 came a GT version (really) with a four-speed gearbox. Despite all these efforts, the model never quite caught on and production ceased at the end of 1961 after 31,000 units. The following year, the ACMA factory closed its doors and it was over with the Vespa 400. Today, beautiful examples are highly sought after!

Technical data

Bodywork: Convertible

- Length (cm): 285

- Width (cm): 127

- Height (cm): 125

- Wheelbase (cm) : 169

- Weight (kg) : 360

Mechanics

- Cubic capacity: 2 in line 394 cc, rear

- Fuel system: 1 Solex carburettor

- Gearbox: manual, 3 stages

- Transmission: at the rear wheels

- Maximum power: 14 hp (10 kW) at 4350 rpm

- Maximum torque: 27 Nm at 4350 rpm

- Top speed: 83 km/h