Before I get to far into this I feel compelled to note that I’m basing pretty much everything I’m saying on speculation based on the illustrations in this 1957 Piaggio Mototaxi brochure, because I really can’t seem to find any evidence that Piaggio actually built or sold any of these interesting little tricycles. What this seems to be is an attempt by Piaggio to adapt their well-known Ape three-wheeled truck into a small taxi for European markets. It doesn’t seem to have ever actually caught on?
This is a bit odd, really, because the Ape is an extremely popular taxi in places like India and Southeast Asia, among other places, where they’re usually called something like autorickshaws or tuk-tuks. You would think that the circumstances that made these sorts of little three-wheeled machines so popular in many parts of the world would have worked equally well in 1950s Italy and other European countries: small, congested roads, a need for last-mile in-city transportation, expensive fuel, and a certain sense of style. But that didn’t seem to be the case.
That’s really surprising when you consider just how ubiquitous these things were in, say, India. So much so that there was even a James Bond movie set in India, 1983’s Octopussy, with a tuk-tuk/autorickshaw chase:
Ah, yes, it was a company car.
Anyway, around 1957, the year of this brochure, Piaggio had plenty of Ape trucks carrying stuff all over the place, but hadn’t cracked the taxi business. This Mototaxi looks like their attempt, and it’s an interesting one:
The Mototaxi seems like just an enclosed Ape at first, but if you actually look at one of the Ape trucks of the era, it’s really quite different:
Most significantly, the front wheel is contained within the bodywork on the Mototaxi, and the entire front end bodywork is different, with a fixed headlamp and a more raked windshield.
Then, of course, you have the enclosed rear cabin, complete with real doors and everything.
In case you’re somehow having trouble visualizing the interior layout of the Mototaxi, Piaggio has thoughtfully provided this diagram showing the two seats and space for luggage at the rear. Incidentally, this thing has basically the same seating capacity as a Tesla Cybercab.
Of course, the Cybercab can probably make it up a hill steeper than an 18% grade, which seems to be the limit of the Mototaxi when fully loaded. Considering these had a 150cc air-cooled 6 horsepower motor, that’s not really all that surprising.
I wonder why these never really caught on, considering how popular the Ape trucks were at the time. You’d think they’d make sense, but I suppose Italy and Europe had plenty of small, inexpensive cars that could fill the role as well or better.
I did get to drive an Ape once, in its homeland, about 10 years ago when I ran the Mille Miglia. I really wanted to try out an Ape, and I was on a Jaguar-sponsored trip, so I was doing the Miglia in a vintage Jaguar C-Type and a new F-Type. Those cars were fantastic, but they had one wheel too many to satisfy my Ape-cravings, so when I happened to drive by a farm around Parmigiano, like the cheese, and saw an Ape parked out front, I pulled over to see if they’d let me drive it around.
Incredibly, especially given my non-existent Italian, they agreed! It was wonderful, and thankfully my driving partner recorded it for me, so I have this record of that glorious day:
What a charming little truck, farm, people, pants-based seat covers and, yes, those dogs.
RUPEEYA!
[escapes while crowd of flocking pedestrians blocks pursuers]
They needed another seat. Even checker cabs could seat around 8 people. I think London taxis of the era could similar amount. There is no telling how many people were being stuffed in to a rickshaw or tuktuk at that time. At least a similar amount probably more. You regularly see a family of 4 on a scooter in the rickshaw and tuktuk markets. With the trike version being like the family minivan seating for 6 to 8 possibly more with whatever cargo they go when they went out shopping..
Came for the Ape, left all warm and fuzzy after seeing the Great Pyrenees pups in that video from the old site.
I prefer the Piaggio…Orangutan
Ha ha
Just don’t call it a monkey. You’ll regret that one.
Orangutan I didn’t say banana?
An Ape Mototaxi would be perfect when you’re in a Ben Hurry.
FWIU the go-to taxi in Italy in 1957 would’ve been the Fiat 600 Multipla which could carry 4-6 paying passengers (depending on whether the front passenger seat was intact or deleted for cargo space and whether or not there was a full bench in the second row). Being able to carry two couples home from an evening out is A Big Deal in cab circles.
Piaggio had the right idea about 5-10 years late; if they’d had it out in the very early postwar years when the competition would’ve been the prewar-style Fiat 1100 which was much more expensive and could only carry four paying passengers with one in front and three crammed in back and every resource was super-tight they would’ve had a winner.
Still can’t believe how many Apes I saw in Denmark, especially rural-ish areas. I guess it’s the combo of utility, weather protection and graduated licensing.
I think the key piece here is that as an owner-driver of a taxi, this would be very compromised as you’d only be able to take two people with a small amout of luggage around town.
The Fiat 600 Multipla (while a lot more expensive) was probably a similar size but could carry three times as many people – so long as you were all good friends – and their luggage, and do so at highway speeds. It was a very popular taxi for a very long time in Italy for that reason.
https://www.classiccarsmagazine.co.uk/blog/features/fiat-600-multipla-taxi-road-test/
In taxi capacity, what does it give you that a Fiat500 didn’t?
You get less seating capacity, less carrying capacity, and as a taxi – where fewer seats may mean loss revenue. You don’t need to park it, except the end of the day, and traffic in Rome is bad, but it’s not anywhere near the traffic of a major Indian city, and you don’t get the mobility of a proper 2-wheel motorcycle to split lanes of traffic.
Probably the same thing that spawned most three-wheeled road vehicles: register it as a motorcycle and save money on road taxes.
The benefits over a 500 would be easier ingress/egress, taller passenger cabin, and a tighter turning radius, over and above the tax and registration benefits that James mentioned below.
The top image looks like Stromboli there is taking the child off to some dystopian boarding school, and she’s quietly pleading with Mamma not to make her go.
Happy Friday, everyone!
Being locked inside a small cabin on an orbital sander doesn’t sound too nice.
Being in an open one, like in India, or driving one yourself, so you’re in control of when to bail, stop – or just turn the damn thing off – seems more bareable.
Yes I do connect these things to noise and vibration and getting there quite slowly.
But they built a lot of lovely cheap motorscooters at that time in Italy, people could drive themselves. Seems a bit more in line with Italian lifestyle really 🙂