The fruit of a design as minimalist as it was intelligent, the Ciao Piaggio was the best-selling Italian moped throughout the world, a masterpiece still today peerless in terms of efficiency and simplicity.

At the dawn of the student protests, it became an object of desire for 14-year-olds and successfully traversed various eras through to the new millennium. Produced in an almost infinite series of versions, it is today the best-loved moped among collectors, a favourite of travellers, sought-out by tuning enthusiasts, thanks in part to the widely available spare parts.

There was a need for a book that traces the model’s technical and industrial history, not to mention the fundamental role the Ciao played in society and social mores, in Italy and elsewhere, while systematically cataloguing the multiple versions and editions that appeared over the years.