Seventeen people on a Vespa, Valladolid 1958

How many people can ride a Vespa? I have seen nine people on top of one, but until a few days ago I was unaware that some of our countrymen, more specifically from Valladolid, who in 1958 were able to put 17 people on a Vespa and also roll a few meters with it loaded. The event was picked up by the cameras of the NODO, a notary of Spain in black and white from the fifties to the seventies.

Setting the time, in Spain it was relatively recently that the Moto Vespa factory in Madrid had been inaugurated. Despite the fact that the first Spanish Vespa hit the streets in 1953, only a year after the first stone of the new factory was laid. Five years later it was one of the preferred vehicles of the Spanish and it would only yield its place of preference when the SEAT 600 arrived. At that time A Vespa 125 cost 16,500 pesetas (99, 17 euros) while an operator charged a month about 300 pesetas (1, 8 euros) But it was not long since they had “discovered” installment payments, which set a good part of the country in motion.

The genesis of the record began in 1957, when in the Vespa Club of Valladolid They received a telegram sent from a London group informing them that they had broken the record by getting 15 people on a Vespa. The people of Valladolid got down to work and on January 19, 1958, in the Paseo de las Moreras in Valladolid they broke the record with 17 people. But to prevent the British from overtaking them, they kept investigating and preparing for a year later, On February 22, 1959, 30 people were able to get on a Vespa silver color property of Mr. Virgilio Collantes.

I recommend that you visit the blog Vallisoletvum where you can see the press clippings of the time. Then we are surprised when 54 people are mounted on a Royal Enfield 500, if it was a linear progression a 500 should be able to ride 120 people. What I think makes the flag of our countrymen from Valladolid even higher.