gn2 wrote:Scooters were in production for three decades before the first Italian scooter was built.

MrGrumpy wrote:This sounds like a whole new topic!! Please provide some evidence that we can pick over and argue over what exactly a 'scooter' is!!

Irev posted a while ago that the american company Cushman came up with the scooter before the italians - I think he's referring to the prototype called something like "R-1". Later they had a military project called the "Airborne" that was also a step-through.

The first production step-through actually came out of Munich long before that back in the 1800's

Seems pretty safe to me to say that the italians popularised the modern scooter and of course scooter culture (cafes and sharp suits) that inspired the original Mods to copy them.

Edit: I did Irev a disservice there, sorry. He did say the americans came up with the scooter 3 decades before the Italians but he was using the "pre-itallian" Cushman scooters to illustrate a seperate point (designs not evolving)

This Cushman is late 1940's or thereabouts.

1890's Hildebrand and Wolfmuller - Earliest production I.C.E. step through I'm aware of

Not quite step throughs, but fairly early?