Before I get to far into this I feel compelled to note that I’m basing pretty much everything I’m saying on speculation based on the illustrations in this 1957 Piaggio Mototaxi brochure, because I really can’t seem to find any evidence that Piaggio actually built or sold any of these interesting little tricycles. What this seems to be is an attempt by Piaggio to adapt their well-known Ape three-wheeled truck into a small taxi for European markets. It doesn’t seem to have ever actually caught on?
This is a bit odd, really, because the Ape is an extremely popular taxi in places like India and Southeast Asia, among other places, where they’re usually called something like autorickshaws or tuk-tuks. You would think that the circumstances that made these sorts of little three-wheeled machines so popular in many parts of the world would have worked equally well in 1950s Italy and other European countries: small, congested roads, a need for last-mile in-city transportation, expensive fuel, and a certain sense of style. But that didn’t seem to be the case.
That’s really surprising when you consider just how ubiquitous these things were in, say, India. So much so that there was even a James Bond movie set in India, 1983’s Octopussy, with a tuk-tuk/autorickshaw chase:
Ah, yes, it was a company car.
Anyway, around 1957, the year of this brochure, Piaggio had plenty of Ape trucks carrying stuff all over the place, but hadn’t cracked the taxi business. This Mototaxi looks like their attempt, and it’s an interesting one:
The Mototaxi seems like just an enclosed Ape at first, but if you actually look at one of the Ape trucks of the era, it’s really quite different:
Most significantly, the front wheel is contained within the bodywork on the Mototaxi, and the entire front end bodywork is different, with a fixed headlamp and a more raked windshield.
Then, of course, you have the enclosed rear cabin, complete with real doors and everything.
In case you’re somehow having trouble visualizing the interior layout of the Mototaxi, Piaggio has thoughtfully provided this diagram showing the two seats and space for luggage at the rear. Incidentally, this thing has basically the same seating capacity as a Tesla Cybercab.
Of course, the Cybercab can probably make it up a hill steeper than an 18% grade, which seems to be the limit of the Mototaxi when fully loaded. Considering these had a 150cc air-cooled 6 horsepower motor, that’s not really all that surprising.
I wonder why these never really caught on, considering how popular the Ape trucks were at the time. You’d think they’d make sense, but I suppose Italy and Europe had plenty of small, inexpensive cars that could fill the role as well or better.
I did get to drive an Ape once, in its homeland, about 10 years ago when I ran the Mille Miglia. I really wanted to try out an Ape, and I was on a Jaguar-sponsored trip, so I was doing the Miglia in a vintage Jaguar C-Type and a new F-Type. Those cars were fantastic, but they had one wheel too many to satisfy my Ape-cravings, so when I happened to drive by a farm around Parmigiano, like the cheese, and saw an Ape parked out front, I pulled over to see if they’d let me drive it around.
Incredibly, especially given my non-existent Italian, they agreed! It was wonderful, and thankfully my driving partner recorded it for me, so I have this record of that glorious day:
What a charming little truck, farm, people, pants-based seat covers and, yes, those dogs.
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