Fuji Rabbit Scooter

[Dusty]

I had a fellow come in with a very clean smooth running scooter, looking for a plastic piece missing from the side. He said he had bought it at a garage sale and knew nothing about it. It was a Fuji Rabbit!

"With the surrender of Japan in 1945, the peace treaties forbid Japan from producing any kind of armament and Nakajima Aircraft was dissolved and re-baptized as the "Fuji Sangyo Co.". From leftover tooling and parts from the war effort, the Fuji Sangyo concentrated on badly needed civil requirements for cheap transportation and went on to produce a series of motorscooters. The first Fuji Rabbit (model S-1), which was conceived after carefully studying the Powell scooter that the american airborne servicemen were using, was produced in June of 1946. This places the birth of the Fuji Rabbit a full six months before what was to become the worlds most popular scooter, the Vespa. You can recognize the front wheel of the S-1 as being the tail landing gear of an aiplane, a Nakajima bomber. The Fuji Rabbit became an overnight success as soon as it became available to the public." (www.fujirabbit.com}