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Do you get out enough? Do you see everything that’s happening in your neighborhood?

I know I don’t.

I mean, I thought I did. I talk to neighbors and friends, I walk the aisles of superstores and farmers markets and I drive all over the place. So, why don’t I think I get out enough?

Three wheelers.

I have a love/hate relationship with three wheelers. Some of them are stylish, intriguing, ingenious, but I really thought the idea had run its course and the motoring world had settled for the comfort of four wheels.

Then a friend of mine pointed out several high performance three wheelers, the Blackjack Zero, the Grinnall Scorpion III and the Morgan. I reassured myself, these are specialist vehicles, not everyday vehicles.

Then I went to Paris.

Paris is like most european cites, wealth and poverty side-by-side, beauty and utilitarianism packed on the same street, and people everywhere. Those people need transport, and mainland europe is the scooter’s natural habitat.

Scooters were everywhere and I just walked around and ignored them until I realized they didn’t all have two wheels. No, the uni-scooter has yet to make it big, but the thing below was parked right outside our hotel (and being Paris, I do mean right outside):

Three wheels? And good grief, it doesn’t even date from the 50s. I walked down the row of scooters and about a quarter of them were three wheelers.

To cut this already long story short, they’re called an MP3 (really) and they’re made by Piaggio, an old and famous engineering company from Italy that makes the Vespa (and even airplanes). When I got back to the US I looked them up. Whoa! Piaggio sell these things in the US. And not just congested urban areas, here, in wide open, space is all around you, Texas. Three wheel scooters here in Texas, I never knew.

I really must get out more, what about you?

Cheers!

 

(Images courtesy of BikeCyclingLife and PopArtUK)

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