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Motorcycle Book Store > Motorcycle books beginning with V
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Vespa |
Author: Davide Mazzanti
Published: 2004-04 |
List price: $35.00
Our price: $9.80
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As of: October 12th, 2008 03:45:36 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Excellent reference and coffeetable book
I was interested in purchasing a vintage Vespa scooter, and this book is helpful in knowing the history of the company, its representative Vespa models from 1940's to recent 2005 models. It is not an exhaustive listing of every model the company ever produced. Nevertheless it gives a pretty good background of what one is looking at. Every page of this book has color and/or black/white photogrpahs, and some are shot in closeup views. If you're considering buying a vintage Vespa, I would recommend this reference book.
 For any lover of two-wheeled transportation, not just Vespanians
This book is unbelievably well-written compared to the vast majority of "motor books" [whether automotive or motorcycle-specific.] While it does have some minor technical flaws - primarily, the association of captions with the picture they refer to - the quality of the illustration is absolutely top-notch, and the translation is generally excellent, altho' there are enough oddities to remind you that many sections of the book were clearly originally offered in another language [transcripts of radio shows & foreign-language ads being prime examples.]
The bottom line is that even if you never particularly cared for Vespas over any other brand of scooter, once you've read this book, you'll have a much greater appreciation for the marque and scooters in general. To put it another way: I borrowed this book from the library rather than buying it, but having read it & enjoyed it so thoroughly, I intend to add it to my personal library as soon as funds permit! Two thumbs up!
 Nice, but not essential
Nice book, excelent pictures and lots of info related to the history of the scooter, including all sorts of stories about the role of the scooter in its day, but... The book chooses a few models to portrait in detail and leaves out a couple of important ones, including the rally models and the fact that its an "official biography" tends to make it lack objectivity very often.
All in all it's like a big, beautiful ad for the Vespa and should be bought with that in mind!
2005[?] update
The copy I received in late January '06 seems to be an update on the original Chronicle Books edition of 2004. The newer edition has last chapters that refer to the 250 GTS model. There are a few typo's and printing errors that I did not notice in the earlier book.
Overall - this is one of the very few scooter books I have actually paid money to own. [I have interlibrary borrowed many others.] The Italian-to-English translation is puzzling here and there, but the spirit of the work gave me a deeper understanding of the sociological impact of the machine on culture and Piaggio on Italy.
A book worthy of its subject
I rarely give 5 stars to a product, but this one is flawless. I bought this book to learn about the various vintages of Vespa so I could make an informed choice when buying one. Given the beauty of this scooter, I wanted a book of similar quality, and I was not disappointed.
This book has explained everything about the company and its products together with their long history of excellence in an easy to read, beautifully laid out volume. I now know which Vespa I want: ALL OF THEM!
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