Made-for-India Vespa GTS scooter spotted testing

Vespa’s large-capacity GTS 300 line-up has forever eluded the Indian market, but recent spy shots indicate that all hope isn’t lost just yet. Let’s take a deeper dive and examine it in detail.

1. Scooter’s styling near-identical to international GTS 300
2. Engine shares no similarity with 125cc, 150cc mills, omits kick start
3. Fully digital dash can be seen

India-spec Vespa GTS spied testing: details

As we had reported earlier, Piaggio India is developing a new larger capacity engine, specifically for the Indian market. This was quite some time back, with no development on this front, till now. The Vespa spotted testing here features design elements from the international-spec GTS 300 maxi-scooter, although the motor is different to anything currently sold overseas or in the Indian market. The size of the engine appears to be significantly larger than the 150cc mill found on something like the Vespa Racing Sixties 150. 

The engine spotted here is an air-cooled unit and is in contrast to the GTS 300 sold overseas, which gets liquid-cooling. While no Piaggio products are sold in India with the engine from the GTS 300, the Keeway Vieste 300 maxi-scooter and Sixties 300i neo-retro scooter sold here use a retuned version of this engine.

Elsewhere, the Vespa scooter spied here features a digital dash unit, the shape of which is very similar to the range-topping Vespa GTS 300 Supertech variant. Incidentally, this variant is the first Vespa ever to use a fully-digital instrument console. It remains to be seen whether Vespa endows the production-spec scooter with a TFT dash, like the GTS 300 Supertech, or an LCD unit. 

Another oddity here is the presence of a rear drum brake, which isn’t found on any variant of the international Vespa GTS 300 line-up. This could very well be an indication that Vespa is trying to keep costs down as much as possible, despite the maxi-scooter positioning. 

It’s uncertain as to when this India-spec large-capacity Vespa will make its public debut, but when it does, expect it to carry a significant premium over the Rs 1.5 lakh Vespa Racing Sixties 150, the Italian marque’s current flagship in India.