1949
Lambretta FB 125
Il primo furgone
── 01 / Lambrate · 1947
The river had no idea
what its name would become.
Seventy-eight years ago, an Italian industrialist decided to build working vehicles alongside scooters. This is their story.
01 / Storia
── 01 / The origin
Ferdinando Innocenti, the river and the name
Innocenti S.G. was founded by Ferdinando Innocenti (1891–1966) and stood in Lambrate, on the outskirts of Milan, beside the Lambro river.
The company began as an iron trading house in the early 20th century and grew into an Italian leader in steel scaffolding, tubing, and heavy machinery during the 1930s.
By 1969 Innocenti employed 7,000 people. They were famous for Lambretta scooters and three-wheelers, and equally for heavy machinery built for the metallurgical industry.
Alongside the scooter, the company developed a full range of three-wheeled working vehicles. The name Lambro was drawn directly from Lambretta — both inspired by the Lambro river that flowed past the factory.
The name was no accident. It was a promise: a vehicle that represented Lambrate, a craft that would flow through Italy like the river itself.
A river, a factory, a name — three words that together form a history.
── 03 / The models
Ten generations
Each model another chapter of the same story.
1957
Lambretta FDC
Cabina per il pilota
1959
Lambretta Li 175 Series 1
175 cc di potenza
1960
Lambretta Li 175 Series 2
Una cabina più grande
1963
Lambro 200
Il salto in avanti
1963
Lambro 175
L'evoluzione del nome
1963
Lambro 450 + 550
Il peso conta
1967
Lambro 550N
Il motore esce
1969
Lambro 550V · 550M · 500ML
Il facelift moderno
1972
Lambro 600V
L'ultimo Lambro
── Lambrate · Photo archive
A living factory
Glimpses of the Innocenti factory in Lambrate — production lines, engine department, and Lambros ready to ship to the world.
Photos courtesy of the theLambro.com archive
04 / The pause
Fifty years of silence
1972 — 2024
In January 1972 the last Lambro 600V left the factory in Lambrate. Innocenti S.G. would close its doors a few years later.
For fifty years Lambros rolled along Italian streets as collectors' items, restoration pieces, memories of a post-war Italy that had vanished.
But the name — Lambro — endured. Registered, protected, waiting.
05 / The return
Seventy-eight years later
2024 — 2027
In 2024 the Lambro project was revived under Lambro Ltd, a subsidiary of Innocenti S.A. in Lugano, Switzerland.
Not as nostalgia, but as evolution. The original 1963 silhouette, reinterpreted for an electric era. The same craft, a different energy.
On 3 May 2027 Lambro returns to Lambrate for the official unveiling.
A promise from 1947, made anew.
Origine & oggi
Italian design from the Milan region.
The old DNA preserved.
Robustness and elegance.
The original Innocenti factory in Lambrate closed its doors in 1972. Today's Lambro is not a continuation of that production — it is its inheritor in spirit.
Designed in the Milan region, Lambro is built outside Italy, with the technical and historical guidance of the Lambretta Museum in Rodano. The proportions, the silhouette, the obsession with honest materials — preserved.
What remains Italian is what matters most: the eye, the discipline, the editorial sense. What changes is the energy underneath. The result is a vehicle that respects the original DNA without pretending to be a copy of it.
— with the support of the Lambretta Museum, Rodano
Corporate · Trademark
Ownership and protection
The contemporary Lambro brand is owned by Lambro Ltd, a subsidiary of Innocenti S.A. in Lugano, Switzerland. Innocenti S.A. holds worldwide trademark rights for Lambro, as well as for Lambretta and Innocenti.
Important note: Innocenti S.A. (in its current form established in 2008 in Lugano) has no corporate or operational relationship with the original Italian Innocenti S.G. other than the national Italian trademark transfer.
Archive photos courtesy of theLambro.com — Alliance Classic Motors Ltd