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Down a flight of stairs beneath a scooter rental shop near the Colosseum, Rome’s heat and honking traffic give way to a calm, cool reverence in the form of a basement shrine to Italy’s most iconic two-wheeler.
Parked in chronological order are machines that look more like sculptures in steel and chrome: Vespas from 1946 onward, their narrow waists and curved bodies instantly recognizable.
In the last week in Rome, their buzz has been even more pronounced than usual, with thousands of Vespa riders moving in swarms throughout the city for the vehicle’s 80th anniversary. They streamed through the intense summer heat past the Colosseum, the Circus Maximus and the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla — some wearing vintage leather helmets, others with flags fluttering.
The Vespa was all about freedom. It was about being modern. - Claudio Sarra
But the celebration was also a reminder of how unlikely Vespa’s story is: a scooter born from the ruins of war that within just a few years, became one of Italy’s most enduring symbols of freedom, romance and style.
The museum walls are covered with old advertising posters, vintage riding gear and photographs of Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck gliding through Rome in the 1953 film Roman Holiday.
"The Vespa was all about freedom," said Claudio Sarra, who has run the Vespa rental business with the small museum for three decades. "It was about being modern."
Claudio Sarra is seen inside his small Vespa museum near the Colosseum in Rome. Sarra, who has run a Vespa rental business for three decades, says the scooter symbolized freedom and modernity in postwar Italy. (Megan Williams/CBC)
Sarra grew up sneaking rides on his aunt’s Vespa in small-town Italy in the 1970s. He says it was never just a way to get from one place to another, but a way of entering the wider world.
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