The importance of local culture in shaping a marketplace was never more conspicuous to this Western mind than at the Bangkok Motor show when Honda showed two concept bikes that are so far from the normality of Western markets that they will challenge your thinking as they did mine. The highlights of Honda Thailand's massive exhibition were a Chopper-styled scooter and a Grand Prix Racer-styled mini-bike meant for the road.
The Zoomer X California Style is designed by Honda's R&D in Thailand to "combine the Californian culture and the hiphop style," while the RC-X Mini Vintage Racer is based on the new Honda MSX125 miniature sports bike (a descendent of the original Honda Monkey bike but now an entirely new category of motorcycle – the bonsai motorcycle) and is inspired by Honda's all-conquering Grand Prix racing bikes of the sixties.
The Zoomer X California Style is designed by Honda's R&D in Thailand to "combine the Californian culture and the hiphop style," while the RC-X Mini Vintage Racer is based on the new Honda MSX125 miniature sports bike (a descendent of the original Honda Monkey bike but now an entirely new category of motorcycle – the bonsai motorcycle) and is inspired by Honda's all-conquering Grand Prix racing bikes of the sixties.
At first glance, neither bike would have a snowflake's chance of selling in markets outside Asia's scooter-centric culture without some re-education, but there's every chance both will see the light of day in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and all the other massive marketplaces for which Honda's Thai-based SE-Asian design studio caters.
The first thing to understand is that the scooter is key in Asia.
Most of the road traffic in a region where 60 percent of all humanity lives is still comprised of two wheelers and 90 percent of those two-wheelers are scooters. Men and women ride in equal numbers, age is no barrier with most males riding pre-teen and many girls of the lower teenage years often seen on public roads, usually without a helmet.
People all know the risks, they happily accept them, and the under-funded police forces have better things to do than stop a kid getting to work. Even if a policeman were to take action, it would be silly to take a fine from someone who earns so little. This is low friction society. Everybody gets on with their business.
In the low-speed urban environment where the majority of the world's powered two-wheeled machinery live (Asia), comfortable riding requires a different type of machine than the much heavier large capacity motorcycles which rule in Western countries.
Scooters are much easier to ride than traditional motorcycles in urban conditions, particularly where you need to pick your way through the acres of cars which comprise Asian urban traffic and essentially crawl their way to any given destination.
The reality is that most of the two-wheeled machinery sold into the American and European markets would rarely get out of first gear in most Asian cities.
A scooter's big advantage is its light weight. It weighs half a normal motorcycle. The less a bike weighs, the better it handles ... and it's an inverse squared relationship as to how it feels. Almost anyone can ride a scooter because it is so light and well balanced.
Scooters are also considerably cheaper to run in an environment where gas stations as we know them in Western countries are rare. In Asia the laws of economics dictate that a second tier gas distribution system exists, selling liter bottles of petrol at local stores all over the place. In the vast majority of cases in this region, you buy your gas from a small shop which advertises its purpose by lining up bottles full of petrol out the front.
I wonder sometimes about the laws for occupational health and safety in different countries and how those laws have made our countries inflexible. With everybody accepting full responsibility for the obvious dangers under which they are working, most countries in South East Asia distribute petrol in an entirely "mom and pop" way.
You pull up at one of these stores on a scooter, ask how much in whatever language they speak (always carry a translation book covering the essentials), and buy a few liters, a bottle at a time by waving one or two fingers. The proprietors empty the contents of a bottle into your under-the-seat tank in a few seconds without spilling a drop. In the process they make a healthy premium on the supplies they purchased from a petrol station a few miles away for providing you with the convenience of local petrol in small amounts, and everyone is happy.
This below-the-radar system has enabled the Asian scooter market to grow to astonishing levels – two million scooters were sold in Thailand last year versus 1.5 million trucks and one million passenger cars. There are reportedly nearly seven million scooters in Ho Chi Minh city alone.
In terms of economical transport, the scooter is the world's choice. No parking costs, sufficient speed to run comfortably with the traffic, and running costs of close to nothing. The Honda PCX flies below the radar in many Western nations where scooters are not part of the culture. I've rented hundreds of scooters across Asia and the PCX always commands a premium. Apart from being faster, it is also extremely economical to run when ridden sedately – at the same speeds as traffic in these countries. Owners routinely report 120 mpg and better. Frugal, reliable, fast ... with extremely low running costs for the short distances usually traveled, then throw in the convenience of having a scooter always parked within easy reach and the scooter trumps all other forms of transport.
Scooters were the first mass-market motorized transport in all Asian countries, they still comprise the majority of sales, and you need to be very upwardly mobile to aspire to the cost and inconvenience of a car – parking a car is so difficult that to use it in a business context, you need a driver too – whereas a scooter can be parked anywhere.
Indeed, the financial incentives which Thailand's booming middle class is getting from the Government in the form of a first-car-buyer scheme, have exacerbated the capital's congestion to the point where many people are wondering about the wisdom of their four-wheeled purchases as travel times have increased noticeably over the last two years.
The motorcycle taxis (aka "the Bangkok helicopter") are doing more business than ever before because it's by far the quickest way around the capital. Going in four wheels takes time and money.
The Honda Zoomer X California Style is a scooter with the design features of a chopper – it is based on a lowered Zoomer X with a fat rear tire and steeply raked chrome front fork and a faux shotgun exhaust. It was introduced to rapturous applause and a media frenzy – all in the name of a product AP Honda President Chiaki Kato (that's him on the chopper) says has been built with the "concept of Western culture."
I can just imagine the response to Honda attempting to get some product placement for the Zoomer X California Style in the Sons of Anarchy TV series, or a bro rolling up on one at the local biker bar anywhere in the United States. In the United States, Europe, South Africa and Australia, the Zoomer X California Style would probably never make it out of novelty status. In Asia, with such large numbers at play, it would probably succeed. Custom scooters are commonplace, just as custom cars and motorcycles are in other countries. Local tastes in Asia though, are very different to those in other countries.
Fresh from Honda's presentation, I wandered around the corner only to find Suzuki also had a range of custom scooter concepts on display. Clearly scooterdom is about to be pimped – the bikes below were just some of the concept bikes on show from Suzuki.
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