This bike-powered, three-wheeled, drifting Italian scooter is peak insanity


This bike-powered, three-wheeled, drifting Italian scooter is peak insanity

Quaint Italian villages where everything looks old and weathered but not in poor shape. Narrow, wall-lined cobblestone streets that wind around steep hills. Sprawling coastal vistas that look like postcards in all directions. These are the locales for which Italian scooter builder Piaggio designed the little Ape (pronounced “ah-pay”), a three-wheeled scooter with a miniature truck bed. In reality, the one-seat Ape makes the Japanese kei trucks look like Freightliners and is designed for deliveries and (very) light freight in the cities and small Italian towns, which it does very well. However, if you know anything about human beings and motorized vehicles, you know that someone has hopped a Piaggio Ape up from its 49 cc engine. You also know that, given its tricycle configuration, it’s going to be incredibly wild.

It’s not particularly clear what engine has replaced the entire truck bed on this Lightning McQueen-painted Ape or its black-painted counterpart, but they’re obviously putting down enough horsepower to smoke the tires and pitch the whole ride sideways with comically perfected drifting. And the driver certainly has the chops to manage single-wheel opposite lock. Enjoy this proper insanity.


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One thought on “This bike-powered, three-wheeled, drifting Italian scooter is peak insanity

  1. Chevy Hatin' Mad Geordie

    What I’d like to see is an ecoboost powered Reliant Robin doing the same tricks – but that would probably fall over on the first corner…..

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