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Piaggio MP3 400

Posted by Brad Puetz
Monday, 05 May 2008
Page 1 of 3 Words and Photos by Brad Puetz Do you ever feel kind of dull, like you are never getting noticed? Have you ever wanted to drive down the street and really turn some heads? Well if you had your choice of vehicle to do it with, what would you choose to really make people stop and look; a red-hot Ferrari, a custom Harley, maybe an expensive Italian sportbike? Well you might want to think again. If you really want to get some attention the vehicle you need to be driving is the Piaggio MP3. I guarantee almost nothing will have you answering more questions at stop lights or attracting a bigger crowd in a parking lot. That's a pretty amazing thing considering the Piaggio retails for about the same price as two monthly payments on a new Ferrari. I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised at others interest in the new Piaggio, I mean I sounded like a giddy four year old when Kenn asked me if I wanted to ride the MP3 for two weeks. I think he was actually quite astonished at my immediate, "Hell ya, I want to ride that thing, when can we get one?” So maybe I was a little too excited to ride a scooter, but then again this is not your ordinary scooter. When is the last time you rode a scooter with three wheels that did 90 mph and looked as stylish as the MP3? Piaggio has a long history of building revolutionary scooters; this is the company that launched the first Vespa model in 1946. The Piaggio MP3 is full of innovative features that will have you re-thinking the scooter market. Lets start with the most obvious, the front-end, utilizing two independently suspended 12" wheels together with parallelogram suspension, an original Piaggio design, allowing a tilt angle up to 40 degrees. You will not feel a scooter more stable and planted when cornering or hard on the brakes. With the extra wheel up front you would expect the steering to feel heavy but it actually steers quite quickly and feels very similar to a regular motorcycle with some extra stability thrown in. It took me a while to really explore how far I could lean the MP3 over but slowly my confidence built enough to where I managed to get it to slide a bit while attempting some photos. It was not a controlled slide however, more of a goon looking slide with feet flailing, so we will not be posting any of those photos. (Note: I did beg and plead for copies of those photos but to no avail. Brad's riding image shall remain untarnished for the time being - Ed) If you didn't look at the front of the MP3 before jumping on for a ride you would hardly notice the addition of a second front wheel while riding. The MP3 gives you the benefits of stability and traction while not jeopardizing any agility. When leaning it into the corners Ben Spies style trying to get my knee on the deck (something I would not recommend), the Piaggio did have a tendency to push wide through the corner forcing me to use all of the road on a few occasions, and I really mean ALL of the road! The Piaggio I was riding featured the new Master 400 engine, a liquid cooled four-stroke, four-valve motor with fuel injection. The motor puts out 34 hp at 7,500 rpm. Torque output is 38 Nm at 5,500 rpm. One thing that really surprised me on the Piaggio MP3 is just how fast this thing tops out. I had it up to 90 mph quite easily on the freeway and actually wasn't too scared for my life. The only scary moment coming when a California Highway Patrol Car passed me in the carpool lane, thankfully on his way to stopping another motorist. Acceleration is also abundant and I had no problem getting up to speed to merge onto the freeways or jet away with traffic from stop lights. Even with a passenger the motor still has plenty of steam and is capable of well over 70 mph. There was the occasional stumble off idle and the Piaggio even stalled a few times when leaving a stop light. This can be a bit scary when you have an angry row of traffic behind you ready to mow you over. While it was a bit disconcerting, this just gave me a good excuse to throttle it right to the pins whenever jetting away from a light. << Start < Prev 1 2 3 Next > End >>

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