Florence Vespa ride/tour & Vintage Fiat 500

How many people in your your family? Ages? Do all have previous experience riding vespas? Driving in a foreign country? Will all the drivers have the International Driver Permits? Are all of the drivers familiar with Italian driving laws?

Two people in their late 20s, and parents 65+ but healthy/active. We all have an international license but only two people have experience with Vespa driving in the past.

It does not matter whether it is a Vespa, Honda, Suzuki, Lambretta or Aprilia. They are all two wheeled, and will wind up to about 50mph.
Unless you have ridden A LOT in your home country and have a motorcycle license, do not consider a self driven ride.
Check whether your travel insurance covers motorcycles.

Unless people have experience riding motorcycles, they should refrain from riding a Vespa. It took me several lessons from my dad on his Vespa when I was a kid, before he felt confident to buy me one. That did not prevent me from polishing Tuscany’s roads with my arse on several occasions.
Vintage Fiat 500 is definitely a safer choice and a lot of fun.
Knowing how to drive with a manual transmission required.
https://youtu.be/JsE5EyA3NrM
Tall people need not apply:
https://youtu.be/S6bVhEdQMZw

It took me several lessons

I have never been a careful biker.

I borrowed (without the owner knowing) my first scooter at 12, took zero classes and regularly polished Italy’s roads with my arse till I was 16.

Nevertheless, I think that the 2 members of meerm's family with zero experience have an unconscious death wish.

Rural Tuscany is an easy and pleasant ride, but no ride is that easy and no ER is pleasant on holiday.

Voting with the others: scratch the Vespa idea unless ALL of you have experience with scooters. Scratch the Fiats unless all of you are experienced manual drivers.

Additionally? I'm a little curious how much time you're giving to Florence? You had an overloaded 8-night itinerary posted in one of your other threads, and while I know you've redone it, we haven't seen the final plan. Rome/Florence/Venice/Milan? Rome/Florence+day trip to Pisa/Milan? Just curious that you have time to, say, take a 5-hour chunk - more than that, given time to bus or cab to the meeting place outside of Florence - without shorting the city itself.

@meerm

At home in Perth, In the 1970’s my father bought my sister a new Fiat Bambino 500. Had a gutless 500cc motor bike engine. Could not pull the skin off a rice pudding. But was fun to drive. Had 5 forward gears, and to make things more pleasurable, no synchromesh on any. Maybe reverse, but rarely used it. My sister could not drive it. So, she often took my Austin-Healey, leaving me with the Bambino.

My mates and I had a great time lairing about. Me driving and them standing, poking their heads out through the sunroof haranguing anyone as they passed us by. Simply because we were the slowest car on the road. Canvas sunroof that after about 2 years was prone to leaking at the mere suggestion of rain. Great for the beach. Stick the surfboards out through the sunroof. Easy to park at the beach. Just drive into the sand. To go home, four of us could just pick it up and carry and place on the road. Stopped by a police car one day. They could not stop laughing at us with the boards sticking up. Could not find a suitable traffic violation. We left them on the side of the road in uncontrollable laughter.

Driving required double declutching to get the best out of the engine and gearbox and having the accelerator flat to the metal, revving the engine to the max. Actually, the only wat to get it to go. It could rev freely. I loved it. Could practice my gear changes for when I got on the racetrack. Constantly double declutching to change gears. Particularly 2nd and 3rd. Could wind it up to about 100kph with a tail wind and a 20 degree decline and about 5 kilometres of straight road and no other cars. I could thrash it to within 25mm of its life and it would come back for more. Close to indestructible. Steve McQueen would have been able to make it sing.

Would I try one? Perhaps. Could I still drive one? Indubitably. Would be fun to remember the old days. Do I want to? No way. Did I mention the brakes? Fred Flintstone had a better braking system. Other than truck drivers, do I think a modern-day American driver would know what double declutching was let alone do it? I am laughing at the thought. From the experiences and regrets on some threads here it would probably turn out to be an unmitigated disaster. In 5 hours, one would be lucky to get outside the city of Florence’s boundary. Well at least one is unlikely to get a speeding ticket! Odds on.

If you are still keen, join your local Fiat drivers club and try one or two out.

That my Dear Meerm, is my honest conclusion.

Regards Ron

Thanks for the opinions and sarcasm. These are guided tours and I have read reviews of people who have taken it, also we do feel comfortable with driving manual cars but wanted to try a different activity.
Off-course, we will be getting two vespas and the only people who have experience will be driving it with the second person just riding through it.

required double declutching

OMG, I remember my Mom doing it on our 500!!!! During a family trip on the Alps where she overtook water-cooled German cars on the right with a smart smile on her face...

I hadn't thought at that trip for ages, What a memory flash! Thanks.

So "double declutching" is the famous "Doppietta" (translated double shot or shotgun), anyway I doubt they rent those basic 500s from the early 70s to tourists. Even if they wanted, they are getting rarer and rarer.

Ask the tour operator if the 500 they have are the older models without synchronized gears which require the double declutching. If so, check on YouTube about the double declutching technique.
Hopefully they also not have the model with the 'suicide doors' (hinges on the back therefore if the doors open while driving they will stay open).

Thanks for all the good memories of 500s. I have a lovely photo of one in Trastevere a few years ago. Green instead of basic black.

Sorry to meerm for the digression.

I think everybody who has been near a 500 - a real one not the modern pretend ones - has stories.

My father was serving (British Commando) in Italy (on the Po) at the end of the war and had all sorts of good memories of Italy mixed in with the horrors.

Needless to say in the late 1950s a black suicide door 500 turned up on our driveway in New York. My dad loved it. My mother was petrified of it. She couldn't handle the gears or the steering. Loved the doors though. She always wore dresses and they worked well for her.

My father loved it and drove it when he could (had a Chevrolet for work). I remember it had a tendency to want to change ends when on icy and snowy streets. And the best for me as a boy was the 500 had a strong dislike of any rain which would short out the electrics. Any rain. My dad had a cunning plan and when rain was in the forecast (the engine in the back had a hood over it with lots of vents for the air cooled engine which shorted the electrics) he had an old raincoat - raised the hood after the engine cooled, laid the raincoat over the engine and closed the hood. Worked like a dream. Until. One day either my mother or dad forgot to take the raincoat off the engine and after a mile or so the car was on fire. Pulled through though... Oh yes, about that proclivity for changing ends - a nice big dent was on the rear panel where it had led the way into a guard rail somewhere on the Northern State Parkway on Long Island... great stories for kids, undoubtedly much different for my parents, and the car must not have been too happy.

Edit: I forgot one other thing. The "cruise control". On the dash was a knob. Get up to speed (eventually) and hold the accelerator in the position. Reach up and pull out the knob until it stopped. Tighten the knurled nut behind and let go of both the knob and accelerator and the engine will stay at the same speed. Death trap though because to turn off the "cruise control" you had to reach up and undo the knurled nut and push the knob in, and then use the brake or accelerator. What a car!!

Thanks for letting me reminisce. Cars are after all about travel....