Scooters selling like hotcakes

Editorial cartoon by Ed Hall (detail):



Click to see the full version -- this is only a detail.

A recent USA Today story by Chris Woodyard says:

While scooters made up about 15% of all street-licensable motorcycles in 2007, their U.S. sales zoomed 66% in the first half of the year, highest of any segment in the motorcycle market, the Motorcycle Industry Council says. Some scooter makers say sales boomed when gas hit $4 a gallon: Piaggio Group Americas, which makes Vespa, saw sales rise 174% in July compared with a year ago.

At AmeriVespa, Piaggio mechanic and instructor Rolf Soltau explained that U.S. Vespa dealers attend a meeting once or twice a year at which they tell Piaggio how many scooters they expect to sell in the coming year. What you say is what you get. So if dealers did not anticipate the leap in gasoline prices and the subsequent spike in interest in scooters, well, there's nothing Piaggio can do about that.