BEHOLD, the great Japanese Big Scooter – massive, futuristic and fantastically gaudy; Japan’s super custom scooter is slowly vanishing from the Tokyo landscape where it found it’s birthplace. The two-wheeled offspring of the Dekotora (Decoration Truck) of the mid 70′s, and inspired by the 70′s Kamen Rider (and others), the Big or sometimes called Baka (negative connotation meaning absurd, ridiculous, extreme or dumb) Scooter had it’s heyday in the early to mid 2000′s with dozens of custom scooter magazines and tons of aftermarket parts available. Today, Japan’s strict noise regulation on <250cc scooters and global economic “cooling” has changed people’s opinions about such expensive and outlandish decorations and now even the magazines have dwindled down to a small handful to make way for the new craze… The American Chopper. That’s right! Even though motorbike sales have been decreasing in Japan at a rate of about 10% per year, that hasn’t stopped the Japanese’ attraction to self expression through personalizing their bikes.
Now, instead of the Big Scooter (which never really caught on here in the USA) expect to see more and more of this:
You can keep an eye on the Japanese Mooneyes site for more coverage of how the chopper craze is blazing across Japan. Thanks to Aki-san for the update (even though it was sad to hear). Aki believes electrics will catch on as soon as someone figures out how to customize and tune them. We look forward to seeing Aki’s photos from the floor of the 2010 EICMA show next week!
28. October 2010 at 5:09 am
Does this mean that I can get a custom big scooter at cut rate prices?
28. October 2010 at 5:49 am
2 steps back comes to mind!
28. October 2010 at 6:59 am
Oh, does this mean we can look forward to a new reality show from Japan about a feuding father and son custom fabrication shop? Hiroto Sr. vs Hiroto Jr.???
28. October 2010 at 8:41 am
I’d watch it if they duked it out Hong Kong/Ang Lee style.
1. November 2010 at 4:45 pm
I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. It seems they’re searching for new, more impractical frontiers of pimpin’. I can’t wait to see just how freakish the Japanese chopper will get.
As for electric scooters, they should be at least as easy to customize as a gas scooter. I expect people will install subwoofers and ground effects that rival the power output of the drive motors. Tuning electrics requires quite a bit of specialized knowledge. I expect we’ll see a variety of aftermarket motors, controllers, etc. since those are easy to swap out. Tinkering in your own garage may be much more limited, though.
2. November 2010 at 6:10 am
by the way, Japan has had its own custombike culture since early 80s
and note that bigscooter custom parts manufacturers make a lot of parts for choppers too(eg viruswin,threeone,daytona and others)
2. November 2010 at 12:09 pm
The Japanese have been into custom choppers and bikes for quite some time. American syle hot rods and 1950′s Americana are king over there.
4. November 2010 at 4:28 am
bullshit !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
7. November 2010 at 12:44 pm
Honda has yet another large-displacement scooter concept. Getting pretty irritated by this crap. It looks like a cross between a T-Max and a GP800, but ten years too late. Both the E4-01 and the Griffon (aka, GRF-1) were more attractive, more interesting, and technically superior. Let’s see… ten years behind the times and fuggly compared to previous concepts… must be getting close to a production model.
http://world.honda.com/news/2010/2101102New-Mid-Concept/photo/?r=m
8. April 2013 at 6:16 pm
I been looking for a place to be apart of to play and enjoy real man toys. I was in the Iraq and Afghan war and now im taking it easy. Going to college. I am looking for someone to donate me there old japan custom parts. I want to be the first to have a custom japan scooter in the east coast Florida. I would also like to start a club that will be counter partner will a japanese club. Maybe we can meet up for 1st annual festival. i am a college student so this would be a good fund raiser project. Looking forward to meeting some good people. Peace