Complete in-depth review of the new 2023 Vespa Primavera 50

So this one here, our very first look at the 2023, let's talk about it right now. So the first thing you need to know about this 50 cc scooter is filming here in New Brunswick in Canada. This is a bi, uh, a scooter that doesn't require a full motorcycle license. If you're over 16, if you have your car license, you can drive this without any extra licensing. If you are 14 in this province, you can actually write a test and drive this as well. So this is really a perfect second vehicle, especially in cities where you can use it to get around. You can use it to have some fun. And my very, very, very first motorcycle that I rode in when I grew up, it was 16, you could ride when I was 16, I had a scooter. And let me tell you, they are an absolute blast and that's what this is really about.

And the nice thing about the Vespa is you've got a real history here. This is an iconic vehicle around the world. So you can have that as, for instance, your first vehicle or a vehicle that you can keep because whatever stage of life you're in, these are super helpful to have around, especially as a second vehicle that's really, really fuel efficient. That's a lot of fun and it's super stylish and apparently it steers itself. We'll talk about that in a second here. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna focus on the features of this vehicle and kind of go through it in detail. It's got a really cool blue pink color that unfortunately I'm inside. Can't see the metallic sparkle here, but that's kind of cool with all these vessels is they have that really good style to them that, you know, fresh automotive paint, that's just really good quality.

So what we're gonna do though is talk about the individual features that sort of benefit your life. And then I'm gonna finish up with sort of summarizing why this is a great vehicle to own. So stay with me as we go through some of the technical details to get to some of the more fun stuff. So the first thing I'm gonna start with here is the iconic wheel here. Now owning a Vespa is a lot like owning, owning a Porsche nine 11. These things have been refined and refined and refined over time, but they're instantly recognizable for what they are. And one of the unique design details on the Vespa, which is different than a lot of other scooters is they don't have a second fork tube down here, like a regular motorcycle or like a bicycle. We're gonna show you the other side in a second here, but what you do have here is this nice 12 inch wheel. Now you can get larger wheels on scooters, but this is really nimble. And on a 50 cc I think this is, you know, perfectly good size. What's cool about the tires

Here is if you look at something like, uh, you know, a Kawasaki motorcycle sitting just off camera beside me here, you have a little bit more tread in here than you would on something like some of those motorcycles, especially something like a sport motorcycle. But you do have the same profile here, nice rounded profile, so you're gonna be able to lean into turns and that's what makes it a lot of fun. And you've got really good traction here. But the extra tread here also means that this is really good for all weather. And when we talk about all weather, scooters are great for that because you're able to sort of splash through the puddles and instead of having your feet hanging out on foot pegs, they're in on floorboards and they're protected by not just this fender, but also the overall body work. So this becomes a vehicle that, you know, you don't wanna have to take it out in the rain, but if you do get stuck in the rain, you can actually stay pretty dry with just something like a raincoat on.

So cool, look here where you've got the rim on display. Let's check the other side where the business side of things are and uh, we'll show you some of the technology that's in there. So over here on the left side, you've actually got quite a bit going on. First of all, you have modern disc brakes and these aren't like bicycle disc brakes. These are true motorcycle style disc brakes. So they're vented, uh, which is pretty great because it helps, uh, deal with the heat, it helps expansion and contraction, that kind of thing. And you can see their nice, uh, you know, the caliper grabs right there. And then you have this really sort of advanced suspension piece. You can see the spring, the shock in there and this kind of extra piece. So what this does is it's a bit of an anti dive suspension.

So when you jam on the brakes, it'll work with you to sort of not really dive down, but it is a sort of iconic look and that's bolted on exactly like an automotive wheel would be allowing you to have everything here on this side and then that open wheel displayed on the other side. So kind of a cool system that's actually quite advanced when you consider, uh, what it does and how it works with quality brakes, quality suspension, and again, all of it mounted just on that one side. So r works really well and it kind of looks interesting as well. Take a look at the rear wheel here. You have a lot of the same concept here. A lot of your componentry is all on one side. Now what's cool here is all of your drive components from the engine two transmission and everything is actually right here as part of the swing arm.

So if you look at a normal motorcycle, usually this is just a bar sometimes with a chain involved in there, but you've actually got a drive system here that's basically maintenance free, unlike a, um, maintenance free for you for sure, unlike a something like a motorcycle where you've gotta keep that chain lubed, especially if you've gone through a rainy day, it's all sort of sealed up in here and you've got everything you need. And again, it's mounted to this side with a suspension and drive train all through here. So it kind of a, it looks complicated, but it's sort of a simple system, simple way to do things. And because the engine is mounted low here as well and all the heavy components are mounted low, you actually have a very easy motorcycle to drive. Again, most motorcycles have the engine way up higher in the frame. So all of the weight down low means that it's very easy to handle. And we'll show you that as we hop on there. But this is sort of just the one side, we'll show you the other side as well. So I love showing this side as well. Of course you've got the wheel in the background there. It's not actually mounted here to anything. You've got your, um, exhaust hanging here,

You nice big exhaust deals with emissions. But when we talk about fuel use, if you think about an engine as bringing air in, having the, you know, explosion to get the engine running and then bringing that air and gases out, look at how small this little tube is. So when you talk about fuel savings, this is really fuel savings without any high tech hybrid. You got a lightweight vehicle, very small engine that allows you just a little bit of fuel to burn and pass through there, which means you're gonna really save on fuel and you can kind of see that in just the sort of the design here. And again, this bigger, um, engine here or bigger exhaust here helps also muffle this. So this is a very quiet vehicle to drive, which means when you're driving it, you can hear what's going on around, you can hear the birds chirping, you can hear other things, a really unobtrusive vehicle to have in the neighborhood here.

The other thing I'll point out is that they all come with center stands. Center stands are pretty cool because they give you that stability, holds it nice and upright, you know, it's not gonna tilt left or right. If you have soft ground you have to park on, it's usually not a problem as well. And it actually lifts the rear wheel just a little bit off the ground. So you know, you've got that, uh, little bit of, uh, relaxed on the suspension there. But um, you know, if it, if you're parking this in a garage with a lot of snow and salt in the winter, that kind of thing and keeps that wheel right off the ground so it's not in contact with anything you don't want it in contact with. So as I approach the scooter, you're gonna find out one problem with the center stand.

If you park it in a showroom on a tile floor, it's a little tricky to get off because normally has so, so much weight there, it kind of rolls off, but because the tile is a little slippery to it, I gotta keep my toe right near it, pull it off. You can see it's pretty easy to do if it's on concrete or anything else. It doesn't slide or anything like that. You don't have to put your toe underneath it, but you can see this is very easy to control because again, that weight is down low. It's a very unintimidating vehicle and you don't have to lift your leg way over the top on the back. You can simply slide your, uh, legs across there, easy step through and it's a fairly wide vehicle, but even if, uh, you're shorter than me, you can sit much further forward or you can stand across and jump back up here.

So you've got a really wide platform here that's comfortable even for larger riders and that's pretty rare in the motorcycling world to have a small engine, really efficient vehicle that actually fits someone like myself who's around a six footer. So you can see here if I put it back on the center stand and I'll show you how easy that is, just uh, tow on the, uh, on the center stand, couple fingers here on the rail that wraps across and it very easily pops right back up. And you can see when I sit on it here, very comfortable and you can see if you have, if you're looking for weather protection, you've got wind protection here as well. So on the cold, cold days, you can still drive this with protection from the wind that stays plenty warm, a nice uh, jacket and you're good to go.

If you really want a more protection, you can add an accessory windshield up here. But when you're sitting here, whether you're or short, it's really nice and the mirrors are mounted close to your body and they happen to be wide angle mirrors. So they say objects and mirror are closer than they appear just like the right side mirror on your car would be. And that means that because they're close and because they're sort of slightly wide angle, they allow you to have a really good view of what's around you and what's around. So you feel very safe in traffic. You also sit relatively tall sort of SUV height, so you've got a good commanding view of the road and absolutely no blind spots wherever you are. So kind of a great place to sort of see the scenery. So CD position, comfortable, you've got space for a second person, but let's start taking a look at the dash here and then we're gonna work into the storage compartment and the practical uses of this bike.

So I'm filming this on a little bit of an angle so you can just sort of see everything. You've got a little bit of studio like glare going on if I move it the wrong way. But as you can see that everything comes to life here. Now don't be fooled by speedometer, that goes to 80 kilometers an hour. There are two engines that can go in this. If you have a spammer that goes up to one 40, it's gonna go right around a hundred kilometers an hour. If this speedometer goes up to about 80 or so, it's gonna be in that 50 60 kilometer hour range for a top speed with the 50 cc engine. So this is not highway capable with the 50 cc engine, but certainly country highway capable with that one 50 cc engine is an option. Again, we're looking at the 50 cc today.

Down here you've got a very simple dash fuel gauge in there, easy to read, you've got trip A, trip B, and the regular odometer here and that's it. You can see zero kilometers on this thing. This thing was just assembled for us and uh, uh, right outta the crate and sent to us here in the video bay. So simple, simple dash, but clear and easy to read. Now let's take a look at some of the controls that you have on this bike. On the left handlebar here on a regular motorcycle, this would be a clutch lever, but this is exactly like a bicycle. This is a brake. So if you're used Tori riding a bicycle, you can get on and ride this right away. There's no gear shift changes, no anything else. You just twist the right side throttle. And this one is your brake.

So this would be your, uh, rear brake because there's no foot pedal brake on this one. Now over here you have simple switches for high beam and low beam. Right there you have your signal switches, which can be turned on and canceled. And you're horn down here kind of nicely set on chrome here. We're gonna talk about the headlight in a second. It is a L e d headlight, which are really bright, uh, clean white light, we'll talk about that in a second. But all your controls are right there. Let's go to the right side and check out those controls. Now, right side fav everybody's favorite control, this is your throttle twist and go. And that's it. So that's full off. That's full on and that's all you need to drive this. You've got a brake, like a bicycle. This is a kill switch which is required for every motorcycle.

You can uh, turn it off with key, but this will kill the engine off right away. And then of course that mode button was cycling through trip A, trip B and odometer right here. And this is how you start it. So you make sure this is on turn, the key on press that it starts right up nice and quiet. So we mentioned the lighting up front and I'll show you down here, there are three little lights in here. None of this is on right now, but I just sort of wanna let you know before we turn it on. Three little lights down here, three little lights down there. They're like your daytime running lights for whatever reason, they don't film very accurately, but they are there. They do create some nice light and they won't look great on film. You've got incandescent signal lights up here and then your headlight up here.

So we're gonna turn the bike to the on position and you can see your headlight right away comes to life there. If we go to signal, we can sort of see your left side signal, uh, your right side signal there, we can kill that right there. And then your high beam light, again, this is a bright white L e d light, high beam light right there. Again, I'm not sure if the camera lined up to see a whole lot of more brightness in there, but you should be able to see the difference in the lighting there. Now one thing to keep in mind with l e d headlights is, first of all they're bright, they're excellent. Um, a lot of that is just good, but that bright white light because of the color of it, it's closer in color to daylight, which means when it's shining on something, it helps your brain recognize what it is more easily than something that would be more yellow tinted like a halogen headlight.

So really big safety feature for your own visibility and for being seen as well. Very, very good there. We'll show you the taillight while we're at it. Same thing with the taillight, as you would find with the front lights, they don't film perfectly. This in, uh, person looks like a much more even kind of circular, uh, area there that's evenly lit. It just, uh, looks a little brighter on the bottom just again because of the way the taillight's filming there. But brake light there as well, instant on, instant off, that is a full l e d light. And again, it's hard to show the brightness on camera, but it is absolutely very, very bright. These here, they're just reflectors, they're just style. And again, signal lights down low down there as well. Easy to see, uh, flashing signals right there. So you know, very good lighting on this vehicle. So now let's talk practicality. This scooter is very, very practical, certainly for a motorcycle, extremely practical. 

Visible parts of the, the body work as part of the frame. So you've got this big area here where it allows some steering to come down, but this is part of the frame that's part of what makes these vespas just really, uh, solid feeling On the road. So one interesting thing in this, uh, component here is there is a USB charge port right there. So this is the kind of storage area you're gonna use for your wallet, your sunglasses likely your phone as well because you can also keep that charged with the GPS in there. And if you wanna wear some earbuds or something like that or have a communicator of some sort, you can even get your GPS to speak to you even though it's hidden in there. So lots of things you can do, uh, with that. And of course having the usb obviously keeping your devices charged is handy.

So one thing I wanna point out here on this particular model is this really cool colored seat. Now if you come into the showroom here at Jim Gilbert's PowerSports, there are so many scooters here and so many vespas and the the key piece with Vespas is that there are subtle style differences between all the different ones. So this one here has a sort of textured seat up here. You've got the nice stitching through here. Uh, some of 'em have sort of like a racing stripe look down the middle. Some of 'em have uh, several ribs across here. Every seat is a little bit different. Uh, this one's not filming perfectly identical to the color I can tell by looking at it with my eyes and looking at it through the camera. There's a slight difference in color, but it really does compliment this blue very nicely in person.

Now on a 50 cc Vespa, you have a little keyhole here on a one 50 cc. You won't have this keyhole here, you'll have a button on the dash here, but this of course opens up. So let's just show you what that's like. Opens up there and you have this big huge storage container here. Now what's cool about Vespas is you can actually take it out and clean it there. So that's your whole storage department. Underneath there is your engine, which is fun to take a look at. But this compartment is very, very large. It tucks in there nicely right there. And you can fit a three quarter face helmet. Now I would bet I could probably fit my full face helmet in here. Depends on the full face helmet that you have. Um, but certainly a lot of storage. So here's what you're gonna use this for.

All of your day-to-day stuff that you're doing when you're running around, you can stick it in here while you're driving. Now keep in mind it can get a little warm, so you don't wanna stick your, uh, you know, your sandwich in there for three hours when you're driving around. Uh, but yeah, that is a storage part compartment that you can use that is lockable. Now you have a couple options when you get to your destination, you can take a bag out of there or put it all in a bag and pull the bag right out. Take that in with you and lock your helmet in there. However, you can also lock your helmet on these little tabs here. If you have a little D-ring helmet, you can hang the D-ring there. You can shut the, um, the uh, seat and the helmet can hang on the side of the bike right here or right there on the side using that D-ring to secure it.And you can still have this as lockable storage if you want to add more. This little loop around here can be replaced with a, uh, mounting bracket for a rear, uh, cargo box type thing. That can u be used as a backrest for your passenger as well as extra cargo storage. So for a motorcycle, you have tons of storage here. The other nice thing right here is where you fill it with fuel. You don't need a whole lot of fuel in this thing. It doesn't, uh, burn a whole lot, but you do also have it underneath the seat, which means that it's lock able secure, it's away from everybody. It's super simple. All right, so now let's have a real true, honest conversation. Most of the things I showed you, they're kind of boring. I mean, sure it's practical. The reason you buy any vehicle, at least this is my opinion, but especially something like a scooter is because you like it. And there's something that's super cool about Vespa being around them every day, being able to sit on 'em, use 'em, drive 'em, they're an absolute blast to drive. And I showed you all the rest of the stuff because you need to justify this. It has to also work for you as a regular vehicle. Does it work in the rain? Absolutely. Does it work to carry your stuff around to go to work, go to school, do those kind of things? Absolutely. Is it safe? Yes, you feel very safe up here. You've got those wide angle mirrors mounted close, you know, it's not that much more that much faster than, you know, a very fast bicyclist. So you're really not going crazy speeds. It's not like you're, you know, being blown

Away like would on a sport bike where you have to just a, your brain has to adapt to a whole different speed capability. What this does though is it effortlessly takes you around town in something stylish, gives you reasons to go out. You're not using enough fuel to even worry about it or think about it. You'll go on those trips and the same way a motorcyclist will set out across the country to explore the country. You can go explore your town on this and find reasons to ride. And people on scooters do, I mean I used to own one and I would love to have another one because there's so much fun to just easily hop on and go around town. They're an absolute blast of ride. And the nice thing with the Vespa is you're buying something that is truly iconic. If you buy it as a young kid, you can keep it in the family, other people can ride it in your household, but you can keep it for years and years and years and years and years. And people do. There's a reason these things are iconic. The shape isn't really gonna go outta style or anything of that. They're gonna stay with this. But it's just such a fun vehicle. It's fun to look at. It's a conversation piece, whether it's sitting around at a barbecue in your driveway or whether you're going out around town, swinging through the library, the stores, the shops, whatever it is you're doing, they're an absolute blast. And there's a whole bunch of 'em here at Jim Gilbert's Wheels and Deals. So who is it for? I always kind of finish these videos with who's it for? You wanna take a single person or two people? You can do that on here. Somebody who wants to have fun on something that's easy to ride, practical and just a lot of fun. That's who it's for. Whether you're a 14 year old that needs to get to school and maybe your parents don't wanna have to drive you around everywhere.

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You can do that here in New Brunswick. Whether you are someone with a car license that just needs an extra vehicle in your house. Something a little to either have fun with or maybe to also be practical to use that as a second or third or extra vehicle and around. It fits in the garage easily. It fits in the driveway easily, wherever you want to put it. If you are storing outside, you can get a cover for it and keep it nice and pristine looking so many options. And then you join part of an iconic group of people literally around the world that drive, uh, Vespas as well. So here at Jim Gilbert's powerSports, this is our very first 2023 Vespa. There are still 2022 s around here. So if you're looking at this and you just want a little bit of a discount, 2020 twos, actually there's one sitting right over here that's the identical color.

So there's lots of options here to come in. And again, it's March in 2023 right now. You can walk through the Jim Gilbert's PowerSports showroom and see all kinds of scooters. I'm looking at, there's five there. There's another five there, there's three more there. There's uh, three more there. I'm just in one section. I'm not even in the main showroom. They're everywhere. You can compare the different styles, you can check 'em all out. And if you want to have some fun this summer, maybe it's time for a Vespa. Thanks everybody for watching. Let me know what you think. If you ride a Vespa, lemme know when the comments, what you love about it. If you've had a scooter in the past, tell me all the fun things you've done with it. Uh, maybe I should do a video of all the fun things I can do. Maybe I should do a video of all the fun things I can do in  Fredericton with these things I'll love to see. Let me know what you wanna see and, uh, continue to watch. Make sure you hit subscribe. We'll talk to you in the next one.

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