Vespa scooters and I have a unique history, I’ve spent many days zooming around the Sydney basin for hours at a time. Doesn’t sound that unique but, with the exception of very long trip from Sydney to Brisbane, those hundreds of hours were spent towing a 200 kilogram advertising trailer behind. That amount of weight swinging off the back does mess with a vehicle’s handling, but it also throws brake and engine performance into a stark and unforgiving spotlight.

Vespas are chosen for this sort of work mainly because of their chassis rigidity thanks to their pressed-steel body, and their durability and reliability. And to their credit, the old GTS 200 and 300s did an admirable job of pulling the outfit along and getting me to Brisbane, but I’d not travelled 100 metres down the road on Vespa’s new GTS HPE Supertech 300 before I realised that Vespa have raised the bar substantially in every way over those old workhorses.

The Supertech was launched in 2019 and was a significant upgrade for the GTS range, both in styling and performance. Front and centre is the all-new 278.3cc single-cylinder HPE engine. HPE stands for High Performance Engine and the Supertech’s new mill is the most powerful engine Vespa has ever shoehorned into one of its scooters.

There’s no grey area in the increase in engine performance; it’s got enough berries to make you cock a brow in surprise around town with enough tucked away in reserve to punt along at highway speeds without revving its head off.

Check out our quick spin on Vespa’s new Supertech 300 in the current issue.