The World’s Most Ridiculous New Scooter Looks Like It Ate A Fighter Jet And Should Be Stupid Fast

The scooter is one of the most humble ways to get around. It’s not shouty or trying to be something that it isn’t – just affordable transportation that’s stupendously easy for anyone to ride. It seems like that memo never reached Italy, because for the third year in a row, the nation’s craziest motorcycle producer has cooked up something insane. This is the Italjet Roadster 400, a scooter that looks like it ate a fighter jet for breakfast, and based on what Italjet is saying, may feel just as fast.

I generally see that there are three main categories for road-legal motor scooters. At the bottom of the pile are the scooters that have 49cc engines or electric equivalents, which could be ridden in many places without any formal licensing. Then, you have the scooters that have bigger engines and require licensing, but still aren’t very fast. Finally, you have the maxi-scooter, and these are basically the Cadillacs of the scooter world. They’re big, they’re powerful, and they’re often fast enough for highway travel.

As of right now, the biggest and most powerful maxi in America is the Kymco AK 550i Premium. Before that, the legendary Suzuki Burgman 650 was the king of scooters in America. Either of these is fast enough to outrun some small sportbikes and older cruiser motorcycles, and comfortable enough to ride across the country.

But one scooter producer has found a glorious niche, building scooters that go beyond the typical idea of building a big and comfortable scooter. That’s Italy’s Italjet. The company has had a long history of souping up scooters, but has really gotten crazy in the past few years. Back in 2023, Italjet launched the Dragster 559, which was nominally a scooter that was built like a sportbike with the power to match. Then came the Italjet Dragster 700 Twin (pictured above) in 2024, which turned up the taps to 68 HP with a top speed of 118 mph.

Some folks complained that Italjet was cheating, because while the Dragster was technically a scooter on paper, it really seemed to be just a sportbike pretending to be a scooter. Well, Italjet’s latest creation cannot be questioned as anything but a scooter. The Roadster 400 isn’t as powerful as its siblings, but it might be even crazier.

Built By Hot Rod Scooter Obsessives

This new scooter was introduced at EICMA 2025, the Milan motorcycle show, where the world’s bike producers show off what they’ve spent the past year doing. China brought a new inline-six and a hybrid boxer. America brought a pair of small bikes from Harley-Davidson’s LiveWire brand. Honda introduced its first-ever production motorcycle. Italy? It decided to answer the question of what would happen if an F-22 Raptor slept with a Vespa.

Here’s a recap of Italjet’s history from my previous coverage if this is your first time here:

Italjet is one of those companies that’s always doing something a bit offbeat. Honda will sell you a sort of adventure-ready scooter, but nothing like this. We can thank Leopoldo Tartarini for that, as he got into the family business of motorcycle racing in the 1950s before going on to advertise Ducatis.

Tartarini enjoyed thousands of motorcycle adventures before retiring to motorcycle engineering so other people could have their own memorable experiences on his striking machines. Tartarini was also quite obsessed with scooters and mopeds, which led to him focusing a lot of his talents in that world. Take a look at the novel 1980 Italjet Pack 2 above. It’s a folding scooter of a similar vein as the Honda Motocompo, but from Italy!

The first Dragster hit the market in 1995, and it wasn’t just a scooter, but one for exhibitionists. These things were wild for packing tiny engines (50cc, 125, and 180cc units) together with the kind of tech normally found in sportbikes. The original Dragster had a trellis frame like a Ducati Monster, hub-center steering like a Bimota, floorboards like a scooter, and the ample storage expected from a scooter, too. Italjet says it sold over 70,000 copies of the original between 1995 and 2003, and they retain a cult following today. It’s easy to see why.

The Dragster was rebooted in 2019 when Massimo Tartarini, the son of Leopoldo, decided to continue the family legacy of crazy scooters by wrapping racebike technology up in scooter bodywork. Italjet has milked the Dragster platform pretty hard since then, and the lineup starts at 125cc before racing up to the monster Italjet Dragster 700 Twin.

Classic-Ish Looks, Still Fast

Italjet says it’s using the Roadster 400 to do something different than what it’s been doing with the Dragster. The Dragsters have always looked like futuristic bikes from a distant future. The Roadster is meant to be a nod to the Italian scooters of the 1950s and 1960s while also maintaining the insanity that Italjet has been known for. Italjet goes as far as to poke fun at other scooters, saying that the Roadster stands bold in a “world of generic, algorithm-designed scooters.”

Italjet says that everything you’re looking at here is functional. The scooter sports a tubular steel trellis frame, an Öhlins leading arm suspension up front, an Öhlins trailing arm suspension in the rear, 13-inch billet spoked wheels, Nissin brakes, and twin Akrapovič exhausts. At the heart of the Roadster 400 is the 394cc single-cylinder water-cooled engine, which has four valves and spits out 41.5 horsepower and 30 lb-ft of torque. That firepower reaches the rear wheel through a CVT and a drive belt.

Apparently, this pint-size engine needs two radiators to keep it cool, and to ensure great airflow, the scooter’s two fighter jet-like intakes are fully functional.

Italjet says this scooter is the most powerful in its class. The company hasn’t released any performance data just yet, but that power, combined with the scooter’s low weight of 333 pounds, should make it stupid fast for a scooter. Don’t be surprised to hear that when this gets closer to production, this scooter might come close to hitting 100 mph. It certainly has the chops for it. The brakes on the Roadster 400 alone are pretty meaty for a scooter with a pair of 280mm dinner plates up front and a single 260mm disc taking up the rear.

But that’s not all, because Italjet just couldn’t give this scooter a typical steering system. The company slings the only mass-produced scooters in the world with hub-center steering. In a hub-center, the steering pivot points are moved to the wheel rather than at the steering head, like with a typical motorcycle. The goal is to separate steering, braking, and suspension motions so that there is no front-end dive during braking and that your steering geometry doesn’t change during suspension movement, either.

This scooter has the next generation of Italjet’s hub-center steering, dubbed DLAS (Dynamic Linkage Articulated Steering):

The DLAS System is Italjet’s patented front-end design that redefines steering precision through a two-piece scissor linkage, in which the lower element integrates both the wheel spindle and the fixed brake mount. This simplified, highly rigid structure reduces components and enhances steering accuracy while preserving Italjet’s distinctive handling character. Unlike conventional steering layouts, DLAS operates independently of the suspension system, making it adaptable across multiple Italjet models, from the Roadster to future motorcycles, while maintaining a consistent steering feel and mechanical purity.

Full-Throttle Nutty, And I Love It

Add it all up, and I think the Italjet Roadster 400 is deserving of being called the world’s most ridiculous new scooter, at least until the next craziest thing comes along.

There’s more good news, too, because Italjet doesn’t really like doing that whole concept that never goes into production thing. The Roadster 400, like its even sillier siblings, will be sold to the public beginning in late 2026. For now, the company is advertising only to Europeans, and the Roadster 400 is slated to have a price of €7.800 ($9,062). Italjet does have an American distributor, but it’s unclear if this madness will make it stateside.

I’m not sure what’s going on with Italy’s motorcycle builders, but I hope it never stops. Even if I never get the chance to ride the Roadster 400, it makes me smile, and I’m happy it exists. There could never be too much fun in the world!

Top graphic image: Italjet