Unique edition Vespas auctioned for Special Olympics World Winter Games
The 2025 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Turin, Italy, kicked off on March 6 with a gala dinner. Guests had the opportunity to bid on one-of-a-kind auction items, including hand-painted Vespa Primavera electric mopeds and helmets designed by renowned artists exclusively for this event.
Italy, which has recently embraced the E-moped movement, will be the site where the unique mopeds and helmets will be showcased and auctioned off. They were designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry and Swiss-born artist Urs Fischer. Italy’s Special Olympian Ilaria Bonanni also contributed to the designs.
“Designing a Vespa made me feel like royalty,” Bonanni says. “I never thought I could have such a significant role.”
Fischer, a contemporary artist specializing in large-scale sculptures, said when designing the hand-painted edition, he wanted to express three underlying characteristics of both the Special Olympics and the iconic Vespa brand.
“I was looking for a joyous design that brings together what Vespa and Special Olympics share: motion, connection, and joy,” he says. “In motion we are fully present, alive, and free, in connection with others we find strength, not just as an individual, but as a whole, and joy only asks for an open heart.”
Founded in 1968, the Special Olympics is a global sports movement that aims to end discrimination against people with intellectual disabilities. With more than four million athletes and partners and one million coaches and volunteers in 200 countries, the Special Olympics offers more than 30 Olympic-type sports and nearly 50,000 games and competitions annually.
