ministration the bodies get until
they undergo their final accep-
tance check. Each body receives
an electrical deposition primer
that puts a light negative charge
on the body to encourage the
slightly positively charged paint to
distribute and adhere. Each body
receives a primer coat, a color
coat, and then a clear coat, with
a turn in the drying ovens in be-
tween each spray.
The primer is sprayed by two
of the Fanuc robots in their own
primer room. One robot primes
the left side and then the other
robot paints the right side. When
not spraying, the robots park their
spray nozzles in little cups of sol-
vent to keep everything clean and
flowing. The robots can spray
white, gray, or black primers as
determined by their networked
instruction sets. Each body takes
47 seconds to be primed. After the
primer the bodies move into a little
drying room for 10 minutes at 45
degrees C (113 degrees F).
After baking for 10 minutes,
the body moves from the oven to
the final finish room. Four more
Fanuc robots apply the final col-
or. The robots appear to be typical
Fanuc industrial robots but their
arms and wiring are all shrouded
in white cloth which gives them
the fa intest appearance of Ha llow-
een ghosts painting Vespa bodies.
After they receive their color spray
the conveyor moves the bodies
along into another 45 degree C
oven for another 10-minute dry-
ing session.
Lastly, each body receives
its clear coat from two more Fa-
nuc robots. After the clear coat
the bodies proceed into a big oven
for an 80 degree C (176 degrees
F), 45-minute baking. An eleva-
tor then takes them down, one
by one, past the big control room
where all the automated systems
are being monitored, to the final
inspection room. Two people (oneman and one woman at the mo-
ment) are using thin cotton gloves
to wipe each body to feel any im-
perfections in the paint. If they
find a spec of contaminant, they
use a small polishing wheel to re-
move the imperfection.
The final painted bodies are
beautifully finished with rich col-
ors and glistening surfaces.
The scooter assembly build-
ing is huge and has six assembly
lines for cranking out product.
Tube frames are used for the Piag-
gio range of vehicles; the Vespas
have airplane-derived monocoque
chassis. The bodies, fresh from
the paint shop located in the same
building, are on meat hooks up
high. On the ground, pallets are
loaded with scooter drive trains.
There are three different steel
frames to cover the entire line of
Piaggio-branded scooters.
The magazines of parts that
are fed to the assembly lines in-
clude complete drivetrains with
mounted wheel/tire assemblies.
Francesco Marmeggi is the
Pontedera 2 Wheeler Plant Manag-
er. Prior to managing the factory,
he spent seven years using his de-
gree in Engineering Management
running the Piaggio assembly op-eration in Vietnam. The Vietnam
factory builds Piaggio products for
the Asian market. He explained
some details of the assembly of
the new electric Vespa, which
packages the battery and motor
into the spaces which had previ-
ously housed the “thermal” motor.
He commutes to work on a Piaggio
Beverly 500 scooter.
While I was there I watched a
Vespa Elettrica make its way slow-
ly down the assembly line. Other
models are outselling the elec-
tric model so there is much more
space between the electric models
on the assembly line. The assem-
bly building has 800 workers di-
vided into two shifts to staff all six
assembly lines but the lines with
closer spacing on vehicles require
more people for assembly. The
pneumatic tools hanging from the
ceiling receive automatic torqueinformation from a bar code on
the vehicle. Information regard-
ing the vehicle serial number,
the worker, the tool, and the time
stamp are all centrally stored to
allow for auditing of any assembly
or reliability issues. Currently 15
workers in two shifts are assem-
bling 25 electric scooters per day.
The Elettrica model is rough-
ly supposed to compete with a
50cc thermal (combustion) engine
but the electric version produces
more power. Vespa is also work-
ing on a hybrid which will have a
small thermal engine to power an
on-board recharging generator.
The legacy of D’Ascanio lives
on in the single-sided scooter
front suspension inspired by the
landing gear from one of Piaggio’s
airplanes. D’Ascanio favored the
single side to make puncture re-
pair simpler. Given the quality of
rubber, roads, and inner tubes in
1950s Italy, puncture mitigation
strategies were probably a core
competency of any vehicle.
The quintessential symbol
of post war Italy is the red Vespa.
On Line 6 of the Pontedera factory,
350 “Primavera” ("Spring" in En-
glish) scooter models are assem-
bled daily. That is a lot of spring!(Left) Single-sided landing gear on a 1940s
airplane. (Above) Single-sided front suspen-
sion and plastic fenders for Piaggio scooters.(Above) Vespa Elettrica electric motor/swingarm/rear-wheel assem-
blies await fitting into scooter bodies. (Below) About 350 Vespa Prima-
vera gas-powered models are built each day at the Pontedera factory.
RWRoadracing World, August 2019—59