Violent Running

So a few short weeks ago, I finished building a fantastically fun Honda Zoomer. It was great to do. However, it was strangely unsatisfying to me. I looked at it, and saw that every single part was new/modified except the front frame, and steering stem. But I was still wanting more. Wanting to make it MORE rediculous, MORE of an attention grabber. Everyone likes the feeling of driving by, and people stopping, turning their heads, admiring the work you have accomplished. I know I do, gives me that warm feeling inside. But, we all (well all the TRUE motorheads) are never satisfied, and must tinker. Why do you think people never keep their finished projects?  So in true fashion as I always do, I ushered out the old, and decided to bring a new, uncommon beast to the Violent Running Tribe garage.  I decided on a Maxi scoot. For you out there not familiar with this sort of thing, they are basically 250cc and up scooters, fully automatic might I add. Twist and go is the idea here. Super efficient for commuting, and due to Japan’s awesome inspection laws, do not require to be actually inspected by the government of Japan.

Does anyone know what that means?

It means you can do whatever you want. Super long, super low, super loud, whatever.  It doesn’t matter.  You always see the cars in the videos online of cars in Japan drifting, and they all have the janky looking slash plate.  Like you see here:

borrowed from the blog-http://86fighters.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/ebisu-drift-festival-day-1-amazement/

Well, they use that plate to be able to drive the car for 5 day periods at a time, masquerading as a legal car. So what does not worrying about inspection do for me?

This totally makes it a free pass to do WHATEVER you want, without having to worry about that pesky inspection every two years. Think how many super cool awesome cars you would see if they had that luxury.

I digress however to the topic at hand.  Progression in the world of things with wheels. I have built everything from a 180, which I still miss to this day, to a Nissan Cedric that was passed around online blogs and forums like the slut it was for wheel fitment, to the smallest thing, the Honda Zoomer. So Im sure by now, everyone is wondering….what is the next progression, no? Well, since I got to Japan a little over three years ago, I was fascinated by the Maxi Scooter scene. Huge, obnoxious, loud scooters barreling down the highway with their lights, strobes, and music blaring. Scraping over the smallest of bumps. I told myself that one day I would do that. Up until two weeks ago, I didn’t think I would ever do it. But the wife convinced me by saying she wanted to ride  scooter. So what better way to hide a perfectly good project, than to tell myself, “The wife wanted it, so its good!”  Well, that is what I did. So the start of Project VRT Royalty has begun.  The bike is a Yamaha Majesty 250cc scoot. A Cult classic in Japan. One of a few of outrageously popular scooters that roam the streets to include Maxams (morpheous in the US), Skywave (Burgman), Forza (I dunno the US version), Helix, and a host of others. Aftermarket is plentiful, and I plan to take full advantage of it. I have 8 months to turn this:

into something as awesome as this

Stay tuned