Lambretta scooters date back to 1947 when the first scooter rolled off the production line.
It's easy to forget that at this time scooters just didn't exist.
Lambretta (and Vespa) were pioneers in this field and both of them followed similar journeys in bringing the scooter to the mass market.
The scooters became so popular that it was seen as an integral part of Italian culture and even to this day the Vespa and Lambretta are woven into the fabric of Italian daily life.
But let's rewind 60+ years to the beginning.
The Lambretta story begins with the name of Ferdinando Innocenti, an Italian businessman who had designs on becoming a key industrialist of the time.
In the early 1920's he moved to Rome to try and start a steel tubing factory.
Within the space of a few years Innocenti's company was renowned throughout the whole of Europe for the quality of their work and they soon outgrow their factory in Rome and a move to Milan was on the cards.
In Milan, Innocenti built a much bigger factory and employed in excess of over 6000 people which gives a vivid idea of the scale of his success.
Everything was looking rosy until World War 2 broke out and Italy found itself embroiled in the heat of much of the fighting.
Innocenti's Milanese factory was bombed repeatedly and was left in ruins after the war.
Sharing the same vision as Piaggio of Vespa fame, Innocenti saw the need for a new form of transportation for the Italian people.
The roads were all smashed to pieces and much of the country's infrastructure had been destroyed.
People were also without money and so Innocenti decided that the country would embrace a new, cheap form of transport that could offer a bit more protection and stability than a motorbike.
Using his wealth of experience in the steep tubing industry, Innocenti modified his production to create scooters from tubular steel and the first Lambretta scooter was produced in 1947.
The Lambretta name actually came from the river Lambro which actually flowed through his Milanese factory.
It was difficult to keep up with demand as the scooter's popularity really took off in a way that Innocenti could hardly have imagined.
Within a few years over 90,000 Lambretta scooters were being produced in a single year! Sadly, the good times didn't last that long as towards the end of the 1960's a combination of events sealed the fate of Innocenti's beloved scooter.
In 1966, the great man himself died and his son, Luigi, took over the running of the company.
Although Luigi was more than capable of running the company a number of factors out of his control conspired to bring an end to the Lambretta legacy.
First and foremost, people started migrating away from the scooter as a mode of transport and started buying cars instead.
This inevitably had a significant impact on the company.
A period of industrial unrest swept through Italy around this time as trade unions became more powerful and worker's rights became a hot political issue.
Consequently, workers put in less hours and became less productive.
The death of Ferdinando Innocenti should also not be underplayed as his death left a series of mini power vacuums throughout the company with managers embarking on their own personal power struggles within the company.
In the factory that Innocenti built, production was slowly phased out.
The production line of the last Lambretta scooter model was sold to an Indian company but this too ceased production and so the production of the Lambretta ended once and for all in the early 1970's.