The Vespa That Communism Built, Revived as an Electric Scooter

Less than a year after V-E Day, the Italian fighter plane maker Piaggio introduced a Jet Age-inspired motorbike that quickly won accolades for its cool design and twitchy engine. It was called the Vespa, or “wasp,” and it was a hit in Europe well before Roman Holiday made it a Hollywood icon.

About a decade later, across the Iron Curtain, a motorcycle manufacturer in Czechoslovakia came up with communism’s answer to the fast-growing scooter phenomenon: the Cezeta. The intent was to create a streamlined design like the Vespa’s, but the bike’s squat profile and porcine snout earned it the nickname prase, or “pig.”