CarBrandLogos archive · Lambretta · 1948

LambrettaModel B

The scooter that added rear suspension, and stopped punishing its rider on Italian roads.

Photo: sv1ambo, original at Flickr · CC BY 2.0

The story

A defining chapter in Lambretta history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Lambretta Model B, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Innocenti's first scooter, the Model A of 1947, was built around an open tubular frame with no rear suspension at all, which was tolerable on smooth surfaces and unpleasant on everything else. Postwar Italian roads were mostly the latter.

Lambretta B scooter · Klaus Nahr · CC BY-SA 2.0

Design and engineering

The Model B, produced from 1948 to 1950, addressed that directly. It kept the 123cc single-cylinder two-stroke engine and the three-speed gearbox but added rear suspension, and switched the gear change to a twist grip on the handlebar rather than a rod, which made the machine considerably easier for an inexperienced rider to manage. The frame remained open, with the engine and mechanicals in plain view, in keeping with Innocenti's early belief that a scooter should be honest about what it was.

In production

It sold in far greater numbers than the Model A and established Lambretta as a serious rival to Piaggio's Vespa. The Model C of 1950 replaced it with a new frame, and the enclosed LC version alongside it began the shift toward the fully panelled scooters that both firms would build from then on.

At a glance