One of the cool things that you will see plenty of in Tokyo is the BIG Scooter. Most of us are used to the idea of a scooter being a tiny little thing, pushed along by a putt-putt motor and with tiny wheels the diameter of frisbees.
But the Japanese do it quite differently, and in Japan you see plenty of low, long, fat scooters with big-cube thumper engines. They’re still twist n’ go automatic, but have a lot of presence and are extremely popular. And extremely popular for modifying.
Scooters like the Yamaha Majesty, Honda Fusion and Honda Forza are quite popular, with their long wheelbase and swoopy low styling. Generally they’re 250cc, but some scooters like the Honda Silverwing go up to a big 600cc.
A popular first mod is the exhaust, with many enthusiasts fitting a car-type cannon muffler. With these scoots having large, single cylinder motors, when unmuffled the sound is REMARKABLY like a WRX with an aftermarket exhaust.
All, thump, thump, thump at low rpm, and budda-budda-budda as they accelerate away.
And needless to say, the aftermarket for these big scoots is HUGE. Even VIP-car tuner Fabulous offer bodykits, exhausts, intakes and trim kits for them:
And that’s before you get into the aftermarket handlebars, indicators, footboards, backrests, lights, custom saddles….check out just a portion of the selection available at Orbic.
And there are lots of riding clubs too (I wonder what happens when they run into the Kyusha-kai guys out for a ride…)
Watch these things burble through Tokyo traffic and they’re laid back, relaxed….and very cool. If I lived in Japan I’d probably have one (beats the heck out of a Honda Motocompo!)
I totally fell in love with these things when I was in Japan.
They do sound cool.
Thanks for covering them!
Wow, didn’t know even Fabulous makes parts for scooters. And is that hydraulic suspension on the black scooter? Coolness!!!
Hey, this reminds me: it seems like, in Tokyo at least, that I’d see guys running around on modified dirt bikes. Maybe it was just young guys without the money for a full bike or one of these scooters. Is there a big following with dirt bikes in cities too?
idle sound clips would be kool
LarryW:
Yes, you mean like this?
I think that was a really popular thing in the late 90s, and they’re still a part of the bike scene. They even used to have their own magazines.
damn… sweet stuff… scooters like those are mad expensive here, so people either get 125cc bikes or smaller scooters… still, one of those here would rock on the traffic.
Nice stuff! Thanks.
As for me I like Mugen Forza and Bomex kits.