In 1953, American freedom on wheels had its own soundtrack. Dinah Shore sang “See the

U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet” on television. More than 50 million motor vehicles were registered

nationwide; three years later, Congress would authorize 41,000 miles of interstate highway. That same year, Roman Holiday sent Audrey Hepburn through Rome on a Vespa.

The scooter came from a country where many families could not yet afford a car. Enrico Piaggio had built aircraft during the war and needed something new to make in peacetime. So he turned to Corradino D’Ascanio, an aeronautical engineer who, ironically, disliked motorcycles.

D’Ascanio started with a drawing of someone sitting comfortably, then built the machine around the rider, taking care of practical details such as using its curved steel body to keep the machinery away from staining clothes.

Patented in 1946, eleven years before the Fiat 500, Vespa gave Italians their first taste of private mobility without demanding much fuel or street space. American cars offered freedom as distance, with the driver enclosed behind glass. Vespa kept the rider inside the city.

Roman Holiday made that closeness look irresistible. Audrey Hepburn's Princess Ann has spent her visit being driven, escorted and kept to a schedule. On the Vespa, she takes the handlebars herself, sways into traffic, scatters café tables and leaves Gregory Peck holding on behind her.

The scene is funny, but the real thrill is that she finally chooses where to go. There is no windshield between her and Rome; the city crowds in around her. By then, Vespa was already being produced under license in Britain and France. The film gave foreign audiences something manufacturing alone could not: a picture of Italian life that seemed

freer because it was smaller, closer and a little unruly.

That picture still travels. This September, Vespa riders will gather in Washington for the Vespa Club of DC’s annual Raduno, a weekend scooter gathering. Seventy years after Roman Holiday and eighty after Vespa itself, Americans are still climbing onto the two-wheeled machine that made Italy look so inviting.