As human beings, we hunger for our tribe. A sense of inclusion feeds a primal need that’s older than speech, older than tools. Ultimately, these two wild-looking machines express that need. Each belongs to its own distinct tribe, explains the same idea in their own boisterous way.
On the right, a Kawasaki KZ 550, built in the style of a bōsōzoku rider of the 1980s. On the left, a kaido racer in the grachan style, created from the unloved A10-chassis Datsun 510.
“Bōsōzoku” is known well enough in Western automotive culture, though often misspelled or mispronounced (as with many Japanese words, the final U is almost silent). It's also commonly used as a catch-all term to refer to cars like this squared-off kaido racer. Not so.
The essence behind each is well worth exploring—and don't worry, we're going to get to exactly what “grachan style” is soon. But if you're looking for the simplest translation of bōsōzoku and kaido racer culture, it's all about feeding that oldest appetite of them all: belonging.
The Violent Running Tribe Plays Jazz
Most histories of roving Japanese motorcycle gangs place their origins with the disaffected and defeated postwar youth. Specifically, returning kamikaze pilots, robbed of their chance of dying in glory for the empire. Those young men are held as the spark that led bōsōzoku to explode decades later.
Known as the Kaminari Zoku, or Thunder Tribe, more of these riders were weekend warriors and midnight runners rather than frustrated martyrs, especially by the 1970s and 1980s. Even the youngest kamikaze pilots would have been thirty when the Honda Super Cub arrived to spark the ascendancy of the Japanese motorcycle industry. The Thunder Tribe can be thought of as analogous to British Cafe Racer culture mixed with early American Outlaw biker culture. They too rode in groups, but nothing on the scale of the bōsōzoku.
What followed was Japan's parallel universe to the US’s motorcycle culture. On one side of the Pacific, friendly little Hondas showed up and ridership expanded beyond the outlaw clubs, going mainstream. In Japan, the ubiquity of reliable and affordable Japanese motorcycles in the 250cc-400cc class created an ideal escape pod for working-class youth.
Starting in the 1970s, huge groups of riders on ever-wilder customized motorcycles gathered together at night to flaunt social convention and the law. It was a time of rising prosperity in the country, of homogenous salarymen cogs turning the machinery of a booming national economy.
But the tide didn't benefit everyone. Contrast the Westernized uniform of business suit and tie with the combat-look gear of a bōsōzoku rider. Emblazoned with nationalistic imagery and slogans, these coveralls were theoretically kamikaze-inspired, but translated through right-wing counterculture in Japan.
The uniforms would outlast the bikes, leading to something called toho bōsōzoku (walking motorcycle gang), but the concept behind both was the same. In Ikuya Sato's scholarly Kamikaze Biker, he notes the concept of medatsu koho as being core to a rider. It is the Japanese phrase for being seen, and it refers here to the amplification that occurs in large groups when individuals start showing off to each other.
Thus you get exaggerated raised fairings and unmuffled exhausts, signature horns, and wild paint jobs. This Kawasaki wears a fictionalized racing livery inspired by Kinsho, a Japanese pesticide brand. It is a modern tribute to a bike owned by the builder's friend when he was a teenager. The extreme looks are pure form over function.
Picture this. A dark night, peripheral vision hemmed in. Blaring noise, as much transmitted through bones as well as eardrums. Perhaps illicit substances further spike the adrenaline. A bōsōzoku ride of the early 1980s was basically a 1993 Manchester rave on wheels, hurling through city streets a hundred-strong, stunting and revving and howling with glee. At the front, a leader carrying the gang's banner would set the pace. On the sides, cars would pull up to block intersections, shouting the Japanese for, “Street's closed pizza boy. Find another way home.”
At the back, weaving riders formed a tail to slow pursuing police. In the middle, it was pure chaos, riders snaking across four lanes, sitting two-up and swapping riding positions, egging each other on. Sato’s book describes the bōsō rides as autotelic activity, intrinsically enjoyable thrill-seeking. He notes that this is not just antisocial behavior, but a form of play.
A bōsōzoku ride of the early 1980s was basically a 1993 Manchester rave on wheels, hurling through city streets a hundred-strong, stunting and revving and howling with glee.
In interviews with many young bōsōzoku riders, some of them badly injured in accidents, they often talked about entering a flow state of consciousness. If you've seen the Pixar movie Soul, you'll know the term already—existing only in the moment. It happens in jazz, it happens in racing, and it happened in a seething mass of humanity hurtling down Japanese highways in the 1980s.
This bike, built by Mitsuaki “Aki” Shinohara, is a tribute to this cultural phenomenon with long echoes. Aki is of course no bōsōzoku himself, instead being a skilled painter who wanted to challenge himself to build something unique and interesting. He says his usual style is a little more subtle.
The Japanese media dubbed the gangs bōsōzoku for “violent running tribe,” as they were often a danger to themselves and others. Rival gangs fought bloody battles. There were crashes that were all the worse for a youthful disdain of safety gear. And then it ended. The police cracked down with new laws and stomped the bōsōzoku phenomenon out.
The Touring Road Racers
Bōsōzoku's wild embrace of showmanship can be seen from Japan's Dekotora truck culture to the kaido racers. Unlike the motorcycle riders though, who now only exist in tiny pockets, the kaido racer scene flourishes. In part, that's because it's emigrated across the Pacific.
This Datsun belongs to Keith Measures, who built the car along with his girlfriend Brooklyn Pickering, working outdoors in just a little over a month to create something for his local club's summer touring series. Incorporating elements of the Super Silhouette racers that ran at Fuji in the early 1980s, it was based on a model car Keith found on a Japanese modeler's Instagram. In a fitting full-circle moment, his finalized build was spotted on Instagram and turned into a scale model in Japan.
The Kaido Racer phenomenon started in mid-1970s Japan, when young enthusiasts started physically modifying their cars to look like the racing machines doing battle on the Fuji circuit. Super Silhouette racers in particular featured the most extreme bodywork, as the rules said only the roofline needed to remain stock (not entirely dissimilar from IMSA's GTU class). So racing fans added huge spoilers and splitters, box flares, and deeply dished wheels to their own cars.
Then they'd meet up at races and highway cruises with much of the rambunctious nature of the bōsōzoku riders, only without The Warriors style violence. They'd flaunt the law, blowing through toll booths, blasting music, and revving their illegally modified exhausts. For the most part, though, it was harmless rebellion.
The original term "kaido racer" seems to have come from an automotive magazine called Holiday Auto, which had a member-submitted photo section called "Oh MY! Kaido Racer!" from 1975. Kaido is an older term for road in Japanese, and as these cars were built to ape racing machines, they were literally road racers. But unlike actual underground street racers like Mid Night Racing, almost all the modifications on a kaido racers are made to be seen and heard. Performance is not the point.
There are several flavors, developed as the culture spread. Grachan and Haiso are typical Japanese portmanteaus of Grand Champion (more race-inspired) and High Society (a chandelier in a Toyota Cressida? Sounds great!). Regional differences include the distinctive long nose and non-widebody of the Fukuoka style, or the wilder excesses of the Chibaragi ethos, named for two Tokyo prefectures.
The Kaido Racer phenomenon started in mid-1970s Japan, when young enthusiasts started physically modifying their cars to look like the racing machines doing battle on the Fuji circuit.
In the West, kaido racer culture is half house-party, half archival project, all community. Up and down the coast from BC to SoCal, local clubs come together at summer and New Year's touring cruises, as well as events like the Nonsuri, a slang word that combines the Japanese for welded differential and festival. There's the same level of care and attention to detail here as you'd find in a Western anime artist trying to understand the rules and conventions of Japanese manga. You can break those rules or bend them, but you have to do so with respect.
Because it's a visual medium, cars as social artwork, it transmits back and forth across the Pacific Ocean. Kaido racer culture still exists in Japan, though not nearly at the level of its peak, but the burgeoning scene on this side of the water preserves and grows those traditions.
Brian Baker's excellent website kaidoracer.com teems with deep dives on all the facets of the culture. It provides a glossary of terms for research, recaps club events, and shines a light on little kaido racer nuggets of sheer delight.
For instance, hokapure is the custom where girlfriends hand make their kaido racer boyfriends stuffed versions of their cars. Obviously, there are plenty of female kaido racers building full cars too, but it's hilarious to see something like a hand-sewn plushie Soarer with a scale-sized external oil-cooler. Pickering made one of the Vixen silhouette racer.
It's a strong and growing community, aimed at surprising your friends with a fresh build of outstanding creativity. The cruises are still noisy fun, nights filled with brapping revs and thumping J-pop, but there's no lawlessness. Instead, the flow state here is all about grooving with your friends, octopus-dancing through the night as a raft of cars scrapes down the highway.
The bōsō – the violent running – has faded into the past, youthful impulsiveness and risk-seeking matured into supportive friendships. The zoku—the tribe—remains.
Special thanks to Keith Measures and Brooklyn Pickering for additional photography!
