In the 1950s, France was trying to find a new way to move lightweight artillery through Algeria and Indochina without bringing in trucks and other large vehicles. This is what they came up with:

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France decided the best way to handle their problem was to make a new Vespa with a built-in bazooka. Dubbed the Vespa TAP, the scooter, which would appear more at home traveling in the narrow streets of Paris or Italy, could reach places that were otherwise impossible for larger vehicles. To maintain itself on the battlefield, the scooter featured a reinforced frame and, obviously, a gun big enough to take down a tank.

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Since Vespas aren’t the heaviest of scooters, the huge gun was recoilless, meaning it didn’t kick the scooter backwards every time it fired. According to Business Insider, if fired at an ideal location in good conditions, the gun could easily take out a tank from 7,000 yards away.

The Vespa TAP was primarily used by guerrilla fighters in Algeria and Indochina throughout the 1950s. Even though it looks like you could fire the gun while riding it, most of the time paratroopers would drop in with the TAP and a team of two Vespa riders, one with the gun and one without, would travel together. When they found their target, the duo would park the Vespa, get out and fire the cannon.

Despite its innovative approach and an arsenal of over 500 scooters produced in the first decade, the TAP never really took off and there are no reports that they were used outside of the 1950s. A shame, really, because they added a touch of Parisian class to otherwise bleak military vehicles.

(h/t Reddit, Business Insider)