Piaggio testing 850cc scooter with radical new electronic gearbox

Over the next decade and a half, there were several other significant 250 scooters, most notably the Piaggio Hexagon, the Yamaha Majesty and the Suzuki Burgman, but Suzuki really got the superscooter craze happening with its Burgman 400 in 1999.

The year 2000 saw much activity in this area – Yamaha produced the T-Max, a twin cylinder 500 and the first scooter to be capable of the magical “ton” - 100mph.

The T-Max’s 40 horsepower was soon gazzumped by Honda’s Silver Wing 600 twin with 50 horses and in 2002 Suzuki raised the bar further with the launch of the Burgman 650.

One of our favourite Maxi scooters is the current top-of-the-range Piaggio X9 500 Maxi scooter that comes with a sophisticated communications system that enables you to integrate your mobile phone, use the FM radio, and even transfer calls to your pillion passenger via the intercom. We rode the bike in late 2004 and felt it was a viable alternative to four-wheeled transport with regard to the being contactable when riding a motorcycle. For the most part, riding a motorcycle means that you are incommunicado. For most motorcyclists, that’s a blessing, for others, it prevents them being contactable when they need to be, or even worse, forces them to travel by four wheels when they’d much rather be riding.

Concept Scooters

There have been several significant concept bikes shown since then that have indicated the intentions of the Japanese manufacturers but only Suzuki has really launched a fully-fledged supercooter in the 650 Burgman that we enthused about two years ago.

Those concept bikes are covered in detail in Gizmag – the Elysium and Griffon from Honda and the G-Strider from Suzuki.

The Gilera Nexus 850!

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