Piaggio Yourban 300LT: an English proofreader short of genius

Piaggio’s new £5699 Yourban 300 LT is so clever in so many ways it would be a shame if its stupid name got in the way of anyone warming to it. It’s a lighter-weight, less troll-like version of the MP3 LT, designed to appeal more to chic inner-city types.

Like its non-Yourban MP3 LT sibling it’s got the two front wheels kicked out past the crucial threshold where a three-wheeled scooter becomes – legally – a trike. That means it’s rideable without a bike license, CBT or even (but don’t) a helmet.

And thanks to that ‘articulated quadrilateral’ front end (see how well it works in the Russ Abbott-channelling promo below) it’s considerably safer for the license-less than a two-wheeler would be. Hard to crash even in wet corners, easy to brake heavily on without advanced planning (20% shorter stopping distance than the regular MP3 in fact) and impossible to drop at the lights, it’s only the the price and the name that will cause anyone to baulk.

The first can be easily got round if you think of it in urban terms as an incredibly fast, cheap and fun car, not a tripled-price scooter. The second, we wish Piaggio luck with. Puns are best when they don’t have to be explained, but we fear the Yourban’s origins in ‘your urban’ really does.