Friday, January 25, 2008

Vespa News From Around the World

In today's edition of VNFAW, we have stories from India and South Africa.

BizCommunity.Com, a South African media and marketing news outlet has a story about a Vespa Art competition that's been put on by Vespa South Africa and Guerilla Marketing. The contest, invites art directors and designers to create designs that would work on existing Vespa models with the winner taking home their very own Vespa LX.

"The top three designs, judged by international designer Francesco Maffe from Piaggio, Italy, will be on display at the Design Indaba Expo from 23 February 2008. The winner will be announced on the 25th."

Click here for the news article or click here for the direct link to the Vespa South Africa site. A warning about the Vespa SA site: Upon entering the page, you'll be greeted by the craziest jingle ever! Just a warning if you have your speakers turned up an happen to be at work!

Our second set of worldly news comes from India. Apparently, Vespa is making a comeback in the land of Bhangra and Bollywood films, with the expectations to bring Moto Guzzi and Aprillia soon after. ETA is 2010 with 150000 units annually being the projected production number.

Piaggio used to be pretty big in Asia, and now wants to bring back those glory days with an investment of 100 million Euro to get things started. 60 million of that lump is for the India segment of business. "That investment will be to launch its second four wheeler, a sub-2-ton cargo carrier and to start manufacturing engines in partnership with Toyota Group company Daihatsu. Piaggio, which sold close to 155,000 vehicles in India last year is ramping up capacity to reach 200,000 vehicles by 2010, where hybrid vehicles may also be produced. and the Indian subsidiary is also scouting to have an assembly base abroad."

You can check out this story through a number of outlets:
MoneyControl.com
Ft.com (financial times)
DNAindia.com (Daily News Analysis India)
BusinessWireIndia.com
Reuters.com

No comments: