Vespa Px 150

I put 18,000 kilometers on a '79 PX150 across Rome and the Tuscan backroads, and the electronic ignition upgrade over the old points-based GT genuinely made a difference — cold starts went from a lottery to a reliable two-kick ritual. The indirect gear shift through that bizarre twist-and-click handlebar mechanism never stopped feeling counterintuitive, and threading Roman traffic at 80 km/h with drum brakes front and rear demands genuine respect and planning distance. That 150cc two-stroke pulls cleanly from 3,500 rpm and will genuinely surprise car drivers on urban stretches, but ask it to sustain 90 km/h on the autostrada shoulder and the vibes through the floorboard become a conversation you didn't want to have. The monocoque steel body is both its charm and its liability — it rides like a proper scooter should, planted and purposeful, but one careless parking scrape costs you real money.

I rode an '89 PX 150 daily for two years through Rome and later London, and the thing that strikes you first is how mechanically honest it feels — every gear change through that left-hand twist shifter is deliberate, almost ceremonial, and you either love that or you hate it. The Arcobaleno's integrated indicators clean up the headset nicely over the older PX, and the updated seat is marginally more tolerable on longer runs, but let's be real: past 45 minutes your backside is done. The 149cc two-stroke pulls well enough in traffic and will genuinely touch 95 km/h on a flat, but it's breathless on motorway on-ramps and hates headwinds. Reliability is solid if you stay on top of the two-stroke mix and don't ignore the gearbox oil — neglect either and you'll learn expensive lessons fast.

I ran a Millennium PX 150 as my daily commuter for two years in Rome and later London, and the thing taught me as much about mechanical humility as it did about riding pleasure. That rotary gear shift takes a solid week to stop embarrassing you at intersections, and once the two-stroke hits its narrow powerband around 5,000 rpm it pulls with a satisfying urgency that masks just how modest the numbers actually are. The catalyst-equipped variant I tested felt slightly strangled compared to the non-cat version a colleague ran alongside me — noticeably lazier off the line, marginally hotter running in traffic. What Piaggio changed for the Millennium edition amounts to new colour options and some chrome trim tweaks, which is either reassuring proof of a perfected formula or evidence that the accounting department runs the product division — depending on your mood.

I put about 8,000 km on a 2004 PX150 over two years of city commuting and weekend blasts, and the truth is complicated. The catalytic converter and auto-oil mixing were sensible updates — no more premixing fuel and far fewer blue-smoke complaints from pedestrians — but the cat chokes the already-modest 5.5 horses noticeably at anything above 70 km/h, where the old carb-and-reed setup had more snap. The separate gearbox and handshift remain a genuinely pleasurable anachronism, and the all-steel body shrugs off urban scrapes that would write off a plastic modern scooter, but that 115 kg wet weight means low-speed manoeuvring in tight car parks is a genuine workout. The optional front disc brake was a meaningful upgrade over the drum — grab it if you can find a disc-equipped example — because the rear drum alone gives you heart palpitations in the wet.