The legendary Italian scooter maker Vespa is deeply concerned about how its product will be viewed in India. The Piaggio-owned brand (the name of which is Italian for “wasp”) may have been designed in hardscrabble post-War Italy to be the preferred transport of blue-collar Italian workers, but in India, it wants a very different image — one that fits the price tag of about Rs 80,000. It is toying with the tag line: “it’s not a scooter, it’s a Vespa.”. All very well, but here’s the sting in the wasp’s tail for the Italians: in many parts of small-town North India, the company’s brand recognition is such that all scooters, no matter how downmarket, are called Vespas.
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