Yeah, we know. It’s a little early for April Fool’s Day, right? Well, by all appearances, this proposal for a waterborne “Jet Vespa” looks to be legit. Designer Pierpaolo Lazzarini told DesignBoom.com, “Think about the future and never forget the past” was the motto he had in mind when penning this “fusion between a modern jet ski and a Vespa 50 Special” from the 1960s.
At first blush, the concept looks rudimentary enough: a vintage Vespa scooter slapped atop a miniaturized hull. There’s really nothing groundbreaking about it, really. Lazzarini conceived the water scooter to be “for recreational purpose,” and should be made of fiberglass permitting speed of up to 32 knots via a choice of an electric 39hp engine, and a 330cc 39hp two-stroke engine.
Lazzarini also postulated that the Jet Vespa will do all the balancing for a rider, using “a gimbal self-balancing system keeps it aligned with the water surface” while not running making the accommodation/access of the passengers all the more easy. Self-balancing motorcycles have become the latest innovations from the future, yet we struggle to see how a stationary top-heavy water scooter could operate in the same fashion.
Of course, the images and video shown here are strictly computer-generated illustrations. There is no “proof of concept” prototype built yet. Lastly, Lazzarini proposes that the electric configuration (which would cost $25.000, far exceeding the two-stroke variant at $19.000) would wield an operating time of 3 hours of use.
