Vespa and the Paris-Dakar Rally

So the Paris-Dakar Rally is on again this year – it finishes up in Buenos Aires, Argentina on the 14th January. It got us to thinking about the different vehicles which have competed in the rally over the years… and we came up with the best reason ever to put it on our blog – Vespa and the Paris-Dakar Rally.

Not two words you would imagine in a sentence together, are they…. But it happened! Back in 1980, four Vespa P200E scooters and their ambitious jockeys signed up!

They crossed an amazing 10,000 kilometres from Paris, France all the way to Dakar, Senegal. There were 216 vehicles at the start line and just 81 finished. Ninety of the vehicles at the start were motorcycles, just 25 of them completed the course.

Two of the plucky scooters managed to finish the course, a little later than the other participants, but they did it.

Just goes to show, you really can do anything on a Vespa! (just somethings may not be the best of ideas…)