You behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with car Stuff from house stuff works dot com. I welcome car Stuff. I'm Scoff and I'm Ben Boland, and we've got a topic that comes to us from Rudy Smith. Uh, the famous Rudy Smith for anyone who hasn't heard this name before. This is a frequent contributor to car Stuff in terms of listener mail. Definitely lots of lots of valuable suggestions. And today we're gonna take one of one of Rudy's ideas and run with it on our for our topic today, and we're gonna talk about um all Japanese custom scooters what he calls Maxi scooters. And there's a good reason he calls him Maxi scooters. Will find out in a minute. But um in his email, Rudy said, I just wanted to point these things out. You know, he didn't say this specifically, but he wanted to point these out because they're so unusual. And then he says, further amplifying the Japanese notion that if it can be customized, it will be customized. Also wants to note the low rider aspect of these things. Wants to wonders know if they have like an air suspension to them, something like that, because they are extremely low riding UM scooters. Because we'll find out if if our listeners haven't looked at these yet, take a look online. What we'll tell you where to go to find these. But they're really incredible designs um. He also mentions that Maxi scooters, he thinks, is a big a class of big, large displacement scooters which can be purchased as factory bikes, but then they're customized into these kind of what he calls rakish cycles, almost like custom bikes, like like a chopper design. Right, Yeah, but when we say the word chopper, let's be careful not to confuse these or conflate them with motorcycles. Um, these are not choppers like Harley's or something exactly. And you know what, we'll tell people where to go later to take check these out, to see some good photos and things along the way. But they're pretty amazing. And you know, I dug into these just a little bit more than what Rudy said because he always sends a lot of UM, a lot of links along with a lot of stuff, a lot of references, and he says, you know, check out these sites, you know they're is a site called pink Tentacle which has um custom scooters from Japan. Pink Tentnacle if no one's ever gone there, if you're unfamiliar with it, it it sounds a little funny. Yeah, it's not the best name now and not I guess, but I guess. The site has been dark Bend since two thousand and eleven. They haven't been updating since two thousand eleven. However, there's a lot of good stored information there and it's a it's a Japanese blog site, so it's got a lot of Japanese culture. There's kind of art and design and um science fiction has kind of this um kind of a retro feel to it. Yeah, and you can, uh, you can also check out some YouTube videos. I mean YouTube is lousy with excellent videos of Japanese scooters. You have these custom scooters, you have to you have to you have to remember the custom part because if you don't say the custom part, because that's that's the difference. Let's say your online you're searching for UH maxi scooters and the x I scooters. Search for that, then then search for custom Japanese maxi scooters, and you're gonna see a dramatic difference in what you uh, much much more of a difference than you might expect. Uh So, another thing that's interesting here. I don't know. Let's save some of the other quotes from Rudy's email for a little bit later, Scott, if you're okay with it. I was thinking we could just do a little bit of history real quick. Sure, let's do that, and then I'll tell on exactly what a maxi scooter is. Perfect, Okay, So we know, uh, we know at first that a motor scooter and its most basic definition is similar to a kick scooter. It's got a seat of floorboard, small or low wheels. Um. In the US, we define a scooter as a motorcycle that has a platform for the feat versus you know, the h versus the way that you would put down a foot rest in uh motorcycle, motorcycle or a moped. I guess the moped. It would be pedal driven really, and it's got a step through frame on most classic scooter designs. Now, Japan has a great history with scooters, but of course Japan was not the first country to create scooters, the the moto pads and the moped stuff that goes back to the beginning of the twentieth century. Sure, and they're built out of necessity, right, They're built out of a lot of people were doing things like they would modify bicycles with small engines. That was really something that we saw a lot of early on in the in the nineteenth century. Um, and then we also saw and yeah, I'm trying to think of when we saw the the the motorcycles that that came along that we're kind of an adaptation of that that were stronger engines. And the same thing was that I would say the nineteen twenties and teens, maybe we had board racers that we talked about and some of the some of the cool knockoff type bikes that we talked about, Um, they're similar to those bikes. And then and then I guess they started to move towards these scooter designs which were a little more well, I don't want to say classy, but maybe they were a little more classy and they had they had body fairings that covered the engines and the important internal parts. They're a little bit more stylish, were prettier. I guess yeah, it was definitely an aesthetic. Now let's uh, since we are talking primarily about the Japanese custom scooters. Uh, when we look at scooters in Japan, then where we're really going to start is in the forties post World War two. Interesting story. After World War Two, a lot of aircraft manufacturers were forbidden for making aircraft parts, at least in components, so they had to find something else to sell to stay in business. Uh. So a company named Fuji Sangio and let me go ahead as a caveat Scott on both of our behalves, and to apologize to any of our Japanese speakers in the audience, because we are going to butcher some Japanese words, maybe words, maybe just a few. Well, Fuji Sango part of a h An aircraft company called Nakajima. Uh. They began producing something called the Fuji Rabbit S one. This was in June of n It was uh a was partially inspired or if we're being honest, heavily inspired Wink Wink by some of the Powell scooters used by US forces during the war. So it was designed to use surplus military parts coming out of necessity again. Um So, it had stuff like, uh, the tail wheel of a bomber became the front wheel of the S one, and I've got I've got stats on the S one. I don't know how far we want to go into this. Well, Ben, you know you said something that just reminded me. He said it was called the Rabbit. Is that right now? Am I? I'm stretching the the extent of my memory here, Ben, But when we talked about Honda, the Honda Corporation in the foundation, wasn't his nickname Rabbit? Am I making that up? Or is that something that that that I remember from our podcast in? Yeah? Yeah, I wonder if he was involved in I just haven't looked at my notes to even remember this, but now that I think about it, the start of the Honda Motor Corporation began with these these modified bicycles and then mopeds and then um, I don't know if they really got into scooter production, but mopeds and engines led to motorcycle engines, which led to cars and etcetera, etcetera. But that's a good question we should give it. I wonder, I wonder if there's a tie in there. There might be mental note, So the Rabbit has explosive sales. Man. It's the first motor scooter manufactured in Japan, and uh it had competitors who come along. Of course, it had um the Mitsubishi Silver Pigeon, most notably silver pigeon, the Rabbit, the silver pigeon, funny names, yeah, yeah, yeah, and uh in the these uh sales were so successful that in nine the Emperor of Japan was presented with both a silver pigeon and a rabbit. So now we know the pope rides at Harley ever Japan rides a pigeon and a rabbit. Yeah, a silver pigeon. Interesting, that's important. Oh n. In nineteen fifty four, the Honda Juno came out. Oh that's right. Okay, okay, we can talk about that one for sure. Now these were uh well, okay, here's the thing in case somebody before somebody sends the email out to us. Uh. The history of the Japanese scooters can be a little bit murky because it was post war. So when we say that the Rabbit was the first one manufactured in Japan, what we're really aiming for is the first production model manufacturing Japan. Because keep in mind, again it's out of necessity. So a lot of people are making their own cottage industry versions or building one, you know, at their house from spare parts. And we can't ignore the fact that it was also happening in Europe. Remember there were there were places in Europe that were completely destroyed by the war. Uh, they found it necessity, you know, out of necessity to to build these these, uh the scooter type designs to get back and forth across factory grounds or you know, just around the city whatever. It was kind of way to get back on wheels again. And so so in Europe a lot of a lot of post war europe countries found it necessary to create something like this as well. So that was happening at the same time simultaneously, and um, you know it was I don't know, it became popular out of necessity, but then it also kind of hung around because people really liked the way to get it to get around. It was efficient, it was it was it was cheap to begin with. You know, it was an easy thing to buy and maintain. It's easy to uh, you know, navigate around the bombed out debris of your town or your factory or whatever. It was sure, Um, but you know, it's stuck around because people really genuinely liked it. It It was just a good way to get around town. Yeah. Yeah, and in that way. Yeah, I was gonna say this popularity continues today when I I know this is something that's interesting, Scott. I know that when we're talking about scooters, at least in the US and maybe in Europe to the first image that's going to spring to most people's mind will be a Vespa. Yeah, I'm glad you said Vest. But because we talked about vestas in a in a Car Stuff podcast not long ago, we've done a couple of scooter podcasts. As a matter of fact, if you want to just quickly allow me to do this here, we've had about three recently that I can think of now. We did the Honda story that I talked about, um, you know, where we talked about like a small bicycle customizer who eventually worked his way up to motorcycles and you know, then two cars, And that's one of my favorite ones we've done recently. That was a lot of fun. That was a good one. There's a lot of good little tidbits in there that we're kind of buried in time. Um. Also then we did a Vespa Scooter podcast and I think it was in January two thou thirteen, so that was about a year ago, but it doesn't seem like it was that long ago. But that's that real iconic Italian design, the whole Vespa lifestyle that goes along with the right. And then we also talked about, and I don't know if you remember this, Ben, the Rhino Motors vehicle, which was the single wheel I guess you can call that a scooter. It's a I don't know, it's like a powered unicycle. Yeah, that's Rhino are Y you know, or y n O Motors. Yeah, and um, it's electric. You know, it's a single wheel scooter. I guess, I don't know. But what else we called it during that We called it a powered ut cycle or something something like that. Anyways, we uh, I think you know what we need to do. I think we let's move on to the to the Maxi scooters. Yeah, and I think the the maybe the main thing to understand from this whole thing is that Maxi scooters are kind of their own class and and the reason that these Maxi scooters are are being m adapted or modded in Japan is because and I've seen this written somewhere and I'll have to figure out where I was. I think it's there's a blog site called Asphalt and Rubber, and I think I said that motorcycles are really really expensive in Japan and because not only island nation, and maybe you know, not the easiest thing to get onto the island. I'm not sure you know the importation laws whatever is going on there, but they said Maxi scooters are kind of used to bridge the gap between scooters and motorcycles, because a scooter is is well, we know it's low power transportation, but it's somewhere in between fifty ccs and two hundred and fifty c C engines, and a Maxi scooter begins at two d fifty ccs and ends at eight hundred and fifty ccs and then you know, beyond the eight c cs, that's where you get into like a full motorcycle classification. Now I know there's smaller motorcycles as well, but these this as far as a scooter can go is eight hundred fifty ccs. So Maxi scooter is like this. This I don't want to say niche because you know two or fifty c c to eight fifty that's pretty big. Um, so they're more powerful than a standard scooter will be, like a smaller vespa. I know some vespas get larger than that, but um, these are kind of upper end scooters really that that occupy this this niche space. And now both are personal transportation, I understand that, but the Maxi scooters, Um, they remain relatively cheap to buy, relatively cheap to you know, own and operate, and relatively cheap to ensure, right, Yeah, especially in compared harrison to other vehicles comparison to a motorcycle, which is what the people that do this really want to get to. Now. I know that, you know, some people get into us and say, well, I you know, I'm to the point now where I could afford a motorcycle, but I still like these Maxi scooters. I'm gonna stick with this. But I think they're really finding a group of people that are such enthusiasts with these Maxi scooters, these custom Maxi scooters. Yeah, that they're excited about him. I don't think they're ever going to switch over. And you know, right now we're in a bit of a weird spot with an audio podcasts, because guys, you gotta check out these things. If you liked our earlier episode on Decatur Trucks, you're going to enjoy these scooters. This Okay, this reminded me a little bit of a film that I really enjoyed as a kid called Akira. Do you remember that. I do not, but I saw that name listed several times. Okay, yeah, Well, the one of the main characters in a Kira and some of his buddies ride these just awesome vehicles. And you know, it's it's a little sci fi futuristic stuff, but some of these scooters look like they could be in that field. There is one of these that at least one that's a tribute scooter to Akira. Oh yeah, right right one you've seen that. It's amazing. It's really really cool. Now, I mean, I'm going to tell people to go to just search these now and you can go to that Pink Tentacle site that I that I mentioned, and if you search custom scooters from Japan Pink Tentacle, you're gonna come up with this, uh, this amazing group of photographs of these vehicles. And they're from Yamaha, they're from Honda, they're from Suzuki, and you'll see a lot of these repeated, you know, the same models repeated over and over again, but each one is distinctly individual. They're they're definitely one of a kind pieces here. They're they're highly customized. And you know, Rudy had mentioned, I wonder if they have an air suspension, you know, because of the clearance, because some of these look like they're laying on the ground that's for display that It's just like a car show. You know, when a car pulls into the spot at a car show and they lower it's it lowers itself down, particularly like the rat rods. You'll lower themselve us down so they're they're right on the ground, I mean, sitting on the ground. It looks really cool, but you can't drive that obviously, So they do raise up and down. I saw a couple of videos with these things where they do raise up and down. Typically the writer is not on them when they do this. They step to the side, push the button and it raises up. So it's kind of a I think it's a weaker air suspension or possibly hydraulics. If it's hydraulics, it's a really, really small system, but I think it's air well. The important part is that you look cool when you're standing. Next time you do, you do look cool. And they have these major groups, these gatherings, right, and you can find a lot of these online. I mean, just simple you know, keyword search for big scooter gathering or whatever you wanted to search for, and and you're gonna find these, and you'll see them running and operating and a lot of them. Then they look like they do look like the motorcycles with those you know, foot and a half wide rear wheels and you know, the front wheel is still real narrow, but the back wheels super wide. And yeah, but you're still you know, the crazy thing is you're still in the upright position. You know, you're still sitting upright on these things. They still have the floorboard for your feet. Um, they still have the step through step through designs like yeah, like the scooters do. So they have all the characteristics of a scooter, but they're also adding in these characteristics of these custom custom bikes like we see here in the United States and Europe and you know in Japan everywhere. Oh and uh, let's see where we're Here's where we're at now. We've got a couple of different things. I see, you got some pros and cons I've got. We've got some really interesting culture stuff. We have a little bit of stuff about costs maybe. But before we do that, Scott, I have to tell you there is a reason that I harped on airplane manufacturing in the history of scooters and why is that? And by way of segue, I'd like to mention another film that I enjoy that is not on Netflix instant, but has something to do with our show. It is It is God Speed You, Black Emperor. This is an older black and white documentary about a Japanese bike gang, the Black Emperors. And when we talk about customized scooters, Scott, we would be remiss if we did not mention the subculture attached to both motorcycles and scooters. That's right, And Rudy did point this out. He mentioned that, you know, he thinks that it was kind of a I don't know, something like an undesirable nonconformist group. You know that they that they thought, um, these bike gangs were in Japan, and I can understand that, I see it, But there's a strange name for it. They call it the thundering tribesmen, or the Japanese word for it is and I'm gonna this is what I'm gonna butcher go bosu zoku yeah or uh kaminari zuku. Yeah, okay, good. Yeah. And there's another one there's Marusso, which is uh um. I don't know. It's what the police I guess called the same thing. So they've had their different words or different names for all these things. Basically can it's called a It comes down to like a reckless tribe um. And it's kind of the subculture that's associated with custom motorcycles, but now it's kind of uh drived over to the the maxi scooter culture as well, so you know they see them as kind of the same thing. But these guys aren't causing quite as much trouble. I don't think as the as the original motorcycle gangs were in Japan, right, Yeah, the original motorcycle subculture was similar in that there was a huge emphasis on customizing your bike, and people were young, they were under twenty typically. But we're in these in these groups, so you know, I can understand the scooter translation to this thing. You know that that it that it led over, I guess to that culture. Um, but yeah, it's applied to mainly, it's applied to the motorcycle culture. You know that that term I guess, which was one of Rudy's questions, And it's not a new trend. I mean, you know, it's been around since you know, the nineteen fifties or something like that when they said this kind of all started. Then in the nineteen eighties and nines, there were huge amounts of gang members that were involved in these things. I mean, like thousands five gang members in Japan alone, We're in in gangs in motorcycle gangs has dropped way down, but as of two thousand ten, police have reported that that the new trend among these this group of people that both zuku uh was supposed to ride together in small groups with with scooters instead of motorcycles. So as of two thousand ten, it's kind of trended towards this younger group. They were on scooters now instead of on these big loud motorcycles that they were before, right, Yeah, and those motorcycles, of course were intentionally customized to be much louder. The one of the things that I think is interesting is I was looking into some different blogs, both by Japanese nationals and by Western ext patriots regarding the scooter culture and what it is, and I found some contention. I saw I saw some people who uh drove scooters and really enjoyed it, and then I saw other people who said that uh scooters were a considered incredibly dangerous, and everybody had a story about someone who had been riding a scooter and then hit by a truck or something. And we wondered, you and I have been wondering how this translates in the modern day. You know, how are scooter riders regarded in Japan. I can see We talked about this in the Vestal lifestyle a lot, because you know, they we find that Vespa scooter drivers around town here in Atlanta, they seem to cause a lot of trouble in traffic. Really, I mean, just to be honest about it, right, I mean they're on roads that you know, the speed limits at fifty or even higher sometimes whatever fifty I guess maybe because their secondary roads, but um, you know, they're they're the ones going twenty five and kind of tying things up. And that's not all the time. We did have it. We had. You know, we had some good things to say about as well. I think the Vestpa podcast will clear a lot of that up. But they're pros and cons to scooter ownership. Is that kind of what you're getting on here? Because the cons, I mean, if you want to, let's talk about the pros first, all right. So they're they're relatively inexpensive, I mean the kind of cheap to buy cheap down cheap operators they mentioned cheap doing sure as well. They're good for the city. They're good for short trips in town. Um commuting. Of course, it's perfect running errands if you don't have to carry a lot of stuff. I mean some of them have little compartments for you know, knickknacks and odds and ends and a small trip to the grocery store. Ye, yeah, exactly. You're gonna carry your laptop, You're gonna carry a purse something like that. There's room for that, but not really, um, you know, lots of grocery bags or anything. A couple of gallons of milk or whatever, you're gonna have trouble. But um, low cost transportation. They get incredible fuel mileage. I mean we're talking like a hundred miles per gallon or more sometimes, And I don't know what these modified vehicles get if it's even more, because they're either lighter weight. I can't tell they're lighter weight or or heavier. It's difficult to see because they look like they may even be stretched in some cases. There there's a radical Yeah, so, um two people maximum that still remains the same, even whether it's customer or not. You know, that's about max three people. You're really really you're not going to see a scooter sidecar? No, I don't think so. We haven't seen one, ye know, unless there's some kind of balancing that going on. And there's a question about this one to parking now, it seems like it would be an easy thing to park, an easy thing to store. You could just take it into the hallway in the apartment that you live in and store it there, chain it to a tree out front something like that, but a lot of places don't allow something like that. Or you can chant it to a bike rack, which would be legal, but other places that's not allowed, and you have to park it in in a regular car spot, and you'd have to pay for that car spot, as you would have full car and then I've also read about people who say that they come back to find their scooter moved out of the way in a car in that spot. So people have just decided to exactly they've moved it to the front and then parked in that spot as well. So, um, there's there's pros and cons about the parking. I guess in a big city environment, well one big, one, big pro and stop me if you've heard it before, And I think this is probably the pro is the verse satility, especially in very tight narrow streets in large urban centers like Tokyo. Definitely, definitely, And we uh, you know, we didn't really touch on that, but I think in the you know, some of the places that these things are the most popular, they're they're most popular in Europe, especially in Italy and the Mediterranean area. Japan and Taiwan are really really popular centers for scooters as right, not so much in the US. And and the reason, I guess is because there's there's areas that we talked about their tighter city environments, they're they're more congested, I guess, um, the crowded city streets, you know, very very difficult to get around, very little space for a larger vehicle, so you're better off to on a smaller vehicle than a than a car. Cases, and this goes for urban centers. I'm gonna go ahead and say throughout a lot of Southeast Asia as well. Uh. We had to be careful when we were prepping for this podcast not to go too far down the rabbit hole. But we'll just let you know if you want to start digging that you can see some amazing scooter customization and fabrication in places like India, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and more. Sure. Yeah, this uh, this Japanese subculture they're talking about that just happens to be the one that gets a lot of pressed because there's a lot of photos out there and a lot of blogs sites have picked up on this because they are pretty amazing. I mean again, just do the keyword search and you'll see what we mean. Right. And also there's a there's a different um, there's a different aim at play, I would argue in some of these customizations. In the case of a lot of the Japanese customized scooters, these are scooters that are made for show scooters. You know, they're they're meant to be displayed taken too, uh, the same thing as the equivalent of a car show and win contest for originality and uh style. I don't think that the the custom scooters that we're talking about, I don't think many of them are daily drivers. Just looking at them, I don't think they're the ones that people used to really run around town and do errands in. Yeah. May maybe maybe that's the case with some, but I think that the people that do this also have another scooter that's kind of their their bread and butter wagon. You know. Yeah, they get out and they do whatever they have to do, and then you know, go to work, go to you know, school wherever, and then this is their weekend play toy. Yes. And in contrast, a lot of the scooters that are found in some of the other countries that we just mentioned are functionally customized, so they would be customized, for instance, to carry more stuff than the manufacturer intended exactly, and more people in a lot of Yes, we've seen we've seen some incredible balancing acts happening. Almost looks like a circus acting with as many people as they cram on some of these mopeds and scooters, and so unusual, very unsafe as well. But okay, you've mentioned contrast, let's talk about cons. Yeah, in contrast of the pros, just just really just a few of these, because um, there's a lot of pros to owning a scooter really, I mean, especially in that environment. I think climate has a lot to do with it as well. I mean, if you're able to use it, you're around, that's a big difference. Because here in Atlanta, I was say, out of three or sixty five days, maybe three hundred and sixty of those days, you know, if you're okay with rain, you'd be able to use that scoot. I mean, I'm talking about snow and ice. Really, if there's like maybe five days of that and that's it. The rest of the time, you could drive that scooter. So but if you're in the North or something, you know here in the States that that scooter uses limited to do about four months, you know, in the summertime. Can you imagine someone putting chains on their scooter? You know what, I kind of can after some of the amazing customizations I've seen. All Right, so some of these kinds now long distance travel not really good for that. I mean, you can't go too far, you can't you know what that ties into the next one? Highway use You can't really use a scooter on the highway. There's certain sec limits. And I know this gets a little particular because once you get up to the bigger scooters you are allowed to go into the Yeah, there is. But there's a also a thing that you need to worry about is that with scooters you typically have very very small wheels and it high rates of speed have become very unstable. That's true, and uh, let's see what wait, what's next? Con I just mentioned this on are already I guess rainy days, um, you know like severe weather days in weather, Yeah, you're not gonna be able to head out if if there's a thunderstorm raging and you know there's puddles in the street that are you know, deeper than the wheels are. Really all the roads are ice over exactly. Yeah, there's gonna be trouble with that. Carrying, carrying supplies, groceries, things like that. If you have to go to work and you have to carry a lot with you, you know, a laptop, a backpack, whatever you happen to have, that's another thing that's not very good. Or you just have to pick up something from a furniture store or you know, that's the thing. I have a I have a small hatchback car, and sometimes I'm frustrated with the stuff that I can't carry in that car. You know, I have to go home and get the bigger vehicle, the Honda Element, you know, just I can bring that home. And even then that's not even something Scott, I know you pretty well, man. I I bet you have calculated the angles and the measurements and you know exactly how far you can stick out of the hatch. I've had some ridiculously large things, you know, jammed into that car, of course. Yeah, but you know that's the thing. Like you if you head out, let's just say, you head out where and you find a really cool vintage poster that you want to get right and on the way home, it's like, well, it looks like it may start to rain, so I better not buy that right now. I'll come back and get it later in a car whatever. On a sunny day, you come back and it's gone. That's that's like, I mean, it's a trivial, trivial example of something, but it's just one of those things you have to think about if you're gonna be out in the in the elements, if you're exposed like that. You know, there's a lot of things you have to consider with this type of transportation versus a an enclosed transportation. And the last thing I guess is the two people thing. I mean, you're limited to two people really maximum, you're really really pushing it if you try to get that thing to power, you know, anywhere up a hill with three people on board, two is probably really pushing it. So there's one big, big con that I'm surprised that we didn't mention on the list yet. What is that? Do you want to guess? I don't even have a guess. I got extent distinguished my list safety man say, oh yeah, safety, because this is a thing that we've dealt with when we do any bike podcast. There is a huge there is a huge um misconception about bike safety, at least in the United States for people who aren't writers. UM. A lot of times, I guess it's as some sort of historical legacy that we're left with. But a lot of times when an accident occurs between bike here in the States and another vehicle, there is a tendency in the public consciousness to blame it on the motorcyclist, but I think in many cases that is just incredibly inaccurate because what what we're looking at when we're looking at a collision, whether in Japan or the US, between a car and a bike, is someone enclosed in a safety cage for lack of a better word, hitting someone who has a motor vehicle literally between their legs. Yeah, I guess under their butt. And and there's no um, no crash testing, none of motorcycles or anything like that. And if there is, you know, it's just just kind of see what happens that. It's not really like you're gonna buy one for it's crashed, you know, like you would buy a car like it's crash tested, safety rating and five stars or whatever. It just doesn't happen. It's I don't really see it happening anytime in the future. I know there's um, I think there are airbags for bikes. I think there are things like that happening right now. But it's not really doing anything if you're if you're not strapped onto the vehicle to begin with, and you don't want to be strapping on the vehicle. You want to be thrown free, thrown free the vehicle in a lot of cases, which you know that that confounds the mind of people that you know are in a car because you want to stay in the car. If that's the case in that situation, well that's a that's a good point because you know, if you think about it the the there's a little bit of a risk there when you're adding up the pros and you're subtracting the cons. You kind of have to play the balance game. Because picture this. You're on a tight street in into Okyo and a look, from what I understand, a lot of streets in Tokyo don't have names. So I'm not going to make him up for the sake of argument. But you're on a really tight street and you're thinking, this is great. I have the versatility, the agility in the handling of a scooter, so I'm not stuck back there. Uh like that Bernie and his Honda. And uh, you take a turn that's tight. You know that you can you can squeeze through and then boom a truck comes. Uh didn't see you out of nowhere, because again you're pretty low to the ground and you have lost the risk calculation that you made of convenience versus safety. I think, just to be fair, I know this sounds very doom and gloomish of me, but just to be fair, I would much rather have a scooter in Tokyo despite the risk. Would I would I get injured? Scott? It's me so yes. Probably. You have to be sensible. You have to be sensible to be defensive when you're driving. There's there's another whole podcast here about defensive drive, and we've done motorcycle podcasts and scooter podcasts about this, how bikers are usually the safet bikers and truckers are like the safest people on the road. Honestly, go back and listen to some of our other podcasts about these other topics where we went into the full detail and more safety detail, because this is just kind of off the top of our heads what we think about this, you know, with these custom scooters and the scooters in general. Really, um, you know what, I got one last thing. Really, if you have anything else to include, let me know, But I think I've got one thing that I'd like to kind of wrap this up with. Mind, all right, there's a company that is now creating an electric Maxi scooter. Yeah, and um I read about it on this the site and this one that's Rudy sent along called Asphalt and Rubber and pretty cool. They've got a lot of really interesting post there, you know, a lot of stuff. But one of the post in particular was about something called and I guess it's called the ze COO or ZKU. It's called z e c o O and like the two ohs at the end are large case. Oh so it's a weird name. I don't know if that, you know, has to do with like zero mission or something like that. But it's an electric maxi scooter and it has surprisingly low horse power. It's like twenty horse power forty seven pound feet of torque, so it's not, you know, really fast, it's but at the same time you gotta remember that that's about the same as the electric motorcycles that are being put out by that company, Brammo, and another one called zero. So so this is a and it's really a cool design. I mean, we look at it, it's definitely stylish. I would I would not hesitate to ride something that look that cool. That's that's really neat um very cool design. Very aggressive design. I think it's something that you know, people should take a look at. So again, go to the asphalt and rubber look up zico or its spelled z c O O and uh, that's maybe the best way to look at There's a lot of photos of this thing, and just tell us if you would ride something like that. And the last thing I add to add before we go into some listener mail is that, according to the sources that we were checking their uh, there are concentrations of the uh how do you say it again? Boszoku, Thank you Scott, Sorry guys. Uh, it's the I A I C H I Prefecture, also followed by Tokyo Osaka. Uh. Those are the top three concentrations of these uh. Is it fair to call them gangs? I don't know how much trouble they actually make. I mean, I'm sure that there are gangs, you know, finger quotes, But I think a lot of these people are just enthusiasts, people that are excited about about customizing because it's it's it's a fun thing to do. I mean, even if even if this is something that you are, you know, just doing because you can't really afford a motorcycle or you can't really make that jump up to a motorcycle right now, or if you can afford a motorcycle in a car or whatever, and you just do this out of you know, because you love it, because I love exactly. Yeah, it's it's just a cool thing. So I encourage all of our listeners to go and look up Japanese custom Maxi scooters and you're gonna be blown away by some of these photos. They're they're just amazing. And send us pictures of your custom scooter if you have one too. Oh yeah, if you happen to have one, or you happen to have been somewhere where there are some of these or something on the road or something. They are really they're they're really radically designed wild rides. I really like them now, Scott. At this point, we are going to end the podcast on a little bit of a refutation, aren't we. I think we are. Yeah, so you want to talk about let's see a little listener mail. Alright, So I got a Facebook uh post I guess sent to me. I don't know how the Facebook message. I guess that that I that I read recently, and it's from Michael L And Uh. First of all, he's very complimentary. This is nice one. I just wanted to just you feel like we need to, uh to point this out to Michael. That's all, okay, alright, Michael says, Hey, guys, wanted to know that my wife thinks I'm having some kind of bromance with either to either the two of you or Josh Chuck from S Y s K. I also want to tell you that I love your podcast. I've listened to all of them and have learned a lot, So thank you very much. Thanks appreciate that. Now here's the part that I just a little bit of, Uh, I don't know a little. If you want to clarify, Yeah, I guess that's maybe the best way to say. I want to clarify this. So he says, I wanted to share that I found it odd that you just spent three episodes on Preston Tucker, which he said was very well done by the way, Ben Chucks, thanks man. Yeah, it was nice, but someone like Henry Ford or some of the other grades only get one episode. I found a Tucker in episode interesting, but I also found it odd that there's so many other shows that I think could have been two or three podcasts long, but recently, like recently did a two episode spring on the m R two and three episode podcast on Tucker. So he's wondering why we haven't really talked about Henry Ford all that much. Okay, can I take a swing at this first? You know, I go ahead, Okay, Just I'll be sort of your hype man on this. We would be a nice Michael, were really are? Yeah? Yeah, And if anything, this is let our ulterior motives be honest here, uh Scott. If anything, responding this letter on air is just another way for us to talk more about how much we enjoyed the Henry Ford episodes. For anyone who doesn't know, Uh Scott, you are kind of an expert on Henry Ford at this point because we have extensively covered Mr. Ford weird as it is, and I just it's just happened over like the last six years, just just gradually over the last six years. I kind of I kind of know a lot about this guy, and we've talked about him so often, and Michael, Michael knows that he's he's listening to all of our podcasts, so he understands, you know, where it all comes from. But I do want to point out that, you know, we did we did one episode on Henry Ford that was just strictly on Henry Ford. And it was a relatively short one because it was early on in our history. It was as March two thousand tents, that was four years ago, and that was kind of like the main focus was Henry Ford of course, and all his eccentricities and you know, the good, the bad, the ugly, that's of stuff, right. Well, I wanted to point out that later I went over to um stuff you missed in history class and I did a two part episode with Sarah Dowdy at the time, who's questioning the show, And I did a full two part episodot on Henry Ford. Now a lot of it has repeat stuff, but some of us new and it was her angle on things as well, so there's a little bit of a mix up in the information there. So again that's two more episodes on just Henry Ford there. Then we've talked about him in like Nuts and Bolts Park five. There was like the Spanish moss in the seats, you know, Yeah, that's the thing. Henry Ford comes up. It seems like every other week on this podcast. Yeah, at least at least once a month we have a Henry Ford reference because the guy was in magic. I mean, we talked about him in uh in the um did Bank Robbers Really Right? Fan Mail to Henry Ford episode? Of course, you know about the good getaway cars, the basketaway cars for Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger. We talked about him in some of our origin stories for other car manufacturers. Sure, yeah, we talked about the stainless steel cars and I remember those, the the Fords that came from the Allegheny Ludlam company. And that was back in June of two thirteen. We also mentioned him in the in the Ford Nucleon podcast where the nuclear power cars, and that was in June of two thousand eleven. And we men mentioned him as well in uh, Let's see were Laundry Listening? We mentioned him numerous times about the show, almost whenever we talk about a certain type of vehicle like a hearse or an ambulance. Also, what we mentioned him in the four G T forty story, which now he wasn't around at that time, but the company, the company, and he was part of that early on. Well, anyways, you gotta listen to that one that was in November two thousand and ten, and we even mentioned him in the Tucker podcast. So that the point is, Michael, and I'm not trying to, you know, be a jerk about this, and I hope it's not coming off that way because I'm really not fun. I just want to say that, you know, it seems like every other week we have at least, you know, we spend a minute or two talking about Henry Ford during some other podcast, and I feel like we cover Henry Ford all the time. He's a fascinating guy. Well, I think it's a good question from Mike's Michael's end, because he's he's rightly pointing out, you know, we did our first three part episode. Ever, i'd like to do more of those because we went, oh buddy, we went deep down the rabbit hole there. But also, um, it's it could be a little bit confusing for listeners who wonder, you know, Scott Ben, you guys mentioned Henry Ford all the time, but you did one podcast just on him. And the reason that we don't have a big two part podcast on that is because we already sent you as our representative to stuff you missed in history class. To do, by the way, an excellent two part podcast on Henry Ford and h thank you man. It'd be awkward if I thought it was if I thought it was bad. Yeah, if I was like, hey, good for you for getting out there. Sure tried you, sure tried. No, But it's a it's a it's a fantastic two part episode that follows um all of the interesting, fascinating stories and myths about Henry Ford. Other characters come up along the way that we do things like this with as well, So Preston Tucker will probably come up in other things because we talked about Preston Tucker and other podcasts as well with some of his innovative designs. And I know that once we kind of get that knowledge, you know, once we we've we've studied these that we get you know, a full complete history and understanding the history, rather then we bring that up later another podcasts and it just kind of builds on each other. So hopefully, you know, throughout the years you'll find like we're cross referencing other episodes and information that we dug up, you know, even years ago that we just somehow it kind of sparks the memory and we we end up adding that to the current podcast, So I don't know. In my defense, I guess or in our defense, I'm saying that, you know, this is kind of a continuous project really and talking about some of these main characters that are really strange, really eccentric, really unusual. And uh, and I know he just mentioned Henry Ford is just an example. So we we kind of jumped off on a tangent that you know, that was it. But but I see what he's saying that, you know, maybe we should dig a little deeper on some of these people in two or three part episodes even because really, when you start digging into someone's biography and you know exactly what they're all about, fascinating and fascinating people. Well, Michael, thank you for writing to us. You have inspired us to do more multipart episodes, and we really appreciate you giving us a chance to talk more about Henry Ford. Oh man, that town in Brazilorlandiah Still, I still, that's one of my favorite stories. He ripped a car apart with his bare hands. He's a tough guy. Yeah, I'm going crazy on this one. So before I go full rabbit hole mode, we just want to say Michael, thank you for writing to us. We hope that uh, your wife is not sick of the show, but we'd like to give you a shout out yet again, we very much appreciate it. And Scott, I guess it's a time for us to hop on our figurative custom scooters and get out of here. Continue the bromance. So you can get updates on everything automotive if you go to car stuff Show dot com, which is our own website. I still can't believe we have our own new website. Pretty legit too, I mean, it looks so good. You can also check out our Facebook and Twitter sites, and you can write to us directly. 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