Triumph-powered Piaggio Ape is the snowmobile of our wildest dreams
The trusty Piaggio Ape tricycle goes feral courtesy of this Triumph Street Triple 675 engine-equipped snowdrifting ice racer
A machine better suited to shifting deliveries quickly and easily around urban centres, the Piaggio Ape three-wheeler isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to creating a beast of a snow-drifting machine… in fact, it may actually be the last.
However, it’s probably for that reason that there is always going to be at least one person to throw caution to the wind by seeing just how far you could customise the trusty trike.
That one person is Francesco Guerrini, who introduced his banana-coloured Ape at the Livigno round of the Automobile Club d’Italia’s 2020 Ice Challenge, complete with a Lancia Delta Integrale graphic on the front-end and plenty of Martini decals on the side. This man knows his rally legends.
In francia l'apetta é piaciuta uuuuu
A post shared by Francesco Guerrini (@francesco.guerrini.93) on Feb 19, 2019 at 4:27am PST
Gone is the flat bed from the rear-end and replaced with something altogether more exciting – a 675cc triple lifted straight from the Triumph Street Triple that revs to high heaven and gives this crazy Ape some serious powder-kicking power.
Given the base model can only hit 30km/h even without a heavy load on the back, we can only speculate what figures this featherweight trike with slender studded tyres can crank out with 106bhp shoving it in the right direction… but this video gives us a good idea.
While we wouldn’t think a jacked-up Ape would be terribly pleasant – or stable - to drive, the spot shows Guerrini is having the time of his life as he flicks it between the snow banks and generates some very impressive speeds… while that unfiltered noise is simply joyous.
At the very least, these are probably the quirkiest frosted donuts you’ll ever see committed to film…
