The Piatti scooter
Encyclopedia
D'Ieteren
D'Ieteren SA is a company, based in Belgium that is engaged in the automobile distribution, short-term car rental, and vehicle glass repair and replacement businesses.- Activities :...
. Its name came from its designer, Vincent Piatti.
In 1956, production also commenced at the Cyclemaster works at Byfleet
Byfleet
Byfleet is an inland island village forming a suburb of Woking in Surrey, England. It is in the east of the borough between the River Wey and the River Mole, and is within the M25 motorway....
in Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. However, the increasing availability of affordable small cars in Europe affected sales of the Piatti (and other scooters) and production eventually ceased. According to Erwin Tragatsch in a brief entry on the Piatti scooter in his Illustrated Encyclopedia of Motorcycles, Cyclemaster "failed to find many customers for this product", and manufactured only a small number before British production terminated.
The Piatti scooter has the dubious distinction of being, in the words of Bob Currie (author of Great British Motorcycles of the Sixties), "the worst scooter ever perpetrated."