What you say is an APE, not an ape, but the ubiquitous little combination of a motorcycle and pickup truck that plugs along all of Italy’s roadways.
Credit photo and text above from the Washington Post.
The Ape hauls almost anything, from buildng materials to fruit and fiish. 
A clasic Ape in Toscana
Nothing elegant about this baby, plain and simple, it does the job.
This one was at an Airbnb in Montepulciano.
Not only did he sell fruit and vegetable, he serenaded the streets with his words on the health of his produce.
This fruit vendor was in Cefalù, Sicily. (fruttivendolo)
Some info from Wikipedia:
At the end of World War II, most Italians, badly affected by the war, lacked means of transport and, more importantly, the financial means to acquire and maintain full-sized four-wheeled vehicles. In 1947, the inventor of the Vespa, aircraft designer Corradino D’Ascanio, came up with the idea of building a light three-wheeled commercial vehicle to power Italy’s economical reconstruction, an idea which found favour with Enrico Piaggio, the son of the firm’s founder, Rinaldo. The very first Ape model and the mark immediately following it were mechanically a Vespa with two wheels added to the rear, with a flat-bed structure on top of the rear axle. The early sales brochures and adverts referred to the vehicle as the VespaCar or TriVespa. The first Apes featured 50 cc,[3]125 cc or 150 cc and more recently 175 cc engines.
It is hard to imagine a 125 CC engine pulling a big load.
gregsitaly 
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