This is something I was quite anxious to film and show to you, and it's about an Ape Car Proto, powered by a Honda 600cc engine, driven and built by Loris Rosati.
I'm not 100% sure but I think most of my foreign followers probably never heard of an Ape car.
Well, an "Ape car", or simply called Ape, is a three-wheeled light commercial vehicle produced since 1948 by the Italian company Piaggio (same producer of the more famous Vespa). The Apes (Ape means "Bee" in Italian) featured 50 cc, 125 cc, 150 cc and 175 cc engines.
In the current ones you can find a proper car steering wheels but usually they are controlled with scooter style handlebars. It was designed to host just the driver but, tightening a bit, 2 people could fit in the little cab.
With a very low top speed, a good torque and thanks to its dimensions you can find most of this little vehicles on mountain villages for light delivery works.
Given its popularity here in Italy it's more than obvious that sooner or later someone would have found a way to make them race in organized championships. In fact, in 1991, in the North of Italy there was the very first race for Ape Protos: heavily modified Apes, with more powerful motorbikes engines, motocross derived suspensions, quad rear tyres and many other mods based on the owner's liking. Generally these races are against the clock, but it can happen to find some GP-like competitions, and they take place on dirts, tarmac, snow or ice.
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