Piaggio Typhoon 50

This new generation of the Typhoon competes most directly with Yamaha’s Zuma 50 / 125 and Kymco’s Super 8 50 / 150 scooters in the small and mid sized rugged/sporty/off-road styled scooter segment. The styling of this new generation is extremely well done for its intended market. The sporty aggressive look is even better than previous generation of Typhoon which was sporty and rugged, but also a bit quirky. Some of the nicer touches on the Typhoon are the integrated front blinkers, the redesigned headlight unit and the ‘stealth fighter’ look of this scooter due to the numerous blacked out parts and clear turn signal covers. Piaggio has done a great job preserving the key design elements of the original Typhoon, while updating the overall look with a fresh, aggressive face.

Unfortunately the same style wasn’t extended to the scooters dash, which gets a lower end plastic look than the first generation Typhoon and loses both the tachometer and aviation style gauges.

The smaller Typhoon 50 uses a new 4-stroke, 4-valve air cooled Piaggio motor. This new mill likes to rev, with Piaggio claiming a peak of 4.6 HP at a sky high 9500 RPM. Peak torque is a bit lower at 2.8 ft-lbs at 8000 RPM. The 50cc Typhoon is capable of a peak velocity of 40 mph, which isn’t due to any restrictions so further top speed gains aren’t easy to come by. This carburated engine is a fuel sipper, with Piaggio claiming 144mpg. That’s likely about 30-40mpg higher then you’ll see in real world use, but even 100 mpg will take a serious chunk of your SUV’s fuel bill.

Like the original Typhoon, Piaggio has equipped this scooter with a shiny gold caliper for the front disc brake. Braking performance up front should be quite good with this dual piston caliper combined with a large 220mm rotor. In the rear, Piaggio has stuck with a 140mm drum brake which is pretty basic but it should be enough to get the job done. The front suspension in the Typhoon uses a hydraulic fork with 3.0” (3.2” in the 125) of travel, which is a generous amount of give. The rear travel is also quite plentiful with 3.4” available. That’s fairly high for a scooter and it should make the occasionally foray onto gentle trails more enjoyable. Most scooters with fat tires like this rarely have the suspension to back it up. The Typhoon’s looks might be optimistic for it’s true off-road ability, but it does seem better equipped in the rear suspension department than other scooters like Honda’s Ruckus and Yamaha’s Zuma 50 which offer 2.2-2.5” of rear travel.

Another nice touch from Piaggio is the inclusion of alloy rims (as opposed to steel) which keep the unsprung wheel weight down and should improve suspension feel over small bumps.

The new Typhoon has two big things going for it - sharp styling and a low MSRP. With styling and price perhaps being the two most important criteria for scooter buyers, the Typhoon will sell quite well. The smaller Typhoon 50 has the looks and power to take on the more popular 50’s out there like the Zuma 50 and Honda Ruckus.

Review by Motorscooterguide