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Watch two high-tech pizza delivery scooters battle it out on the racetrack

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If you’ve ever spent any time in Japan, chances are you soon caught sight of one of Honda’s three-wheeled “Gyro” delivery scooters weaving its way through traffic, probably carrying a tasty pizza to a hungry customer salivating patiently at home in their shoebox-sized apartment.

Built to tilt, the Gyro’s handy leaning mechanism means greater stability when taking bends at speed, in theory leading to faster deliveries and happier customers. The edibles are held in a container located on the back of the scooter, presumably kept warm by the tiny engine that putters away below it.

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The bikes certainly look fun to ride, which may or may not have prompted a Gyro fan to set up a showdown between two delivery riders employed by Pizza Little Party, a Kyoto-based fast food outfit that once hit the headlines for its 2.65-pound Mega Burger Pizza. No, there was nothing little about it at all.

Anyway, back to the race, footage of which happened to be posted online this week by Twitter user Cornhead and spotted by Jalopnik. At the start, both scooters appear to wobble rather wildly before the riders gain control and lean them sharply into the first bend. If there were any pizzas inside those compartments, their sloppy toppings would surely have slipped straight off, rendering the snack undeliverable and utterly inedible.

It’s a tightly contested race, with each rider keen to cross the finishing line ahead of the other, their determination on several occasions almost resulting in a nasty pile-up. However, we’re happy to report that no such calamity occurred and both Gyros — plus their riders — lived to see another pizza delivery.

While an early variation of the Gyro was patented by a British firm back in the 1960s, Honda came up with its own version in 1981, before modifying it to create the Gyro a year later. Priced at around $4,700, the zippy scooter uses a 50cc engine, has a top speed of 30 mph, and gets more than a 100 miles out of a gallon of gas. That’s a whole lot of pizza deliveries.

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Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
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