Scooterboy

A scooter boy is one of several scooter subcultures of the 1960s and 1970s, alongside "rude boys" and mods, and amounts to somewhat of a catch-all category for any scootering enthusiast who doesn't fall into the latter two categories. Michael Brake identifies the subculture differently, classifying it as a subgroup of the mods, alongside "art school mods", "mainstream mods", and "hard mods". Scooter Boys, according to Brake, had "Italian motor scooters (a working-class sports car) covered in accessoriesd and anoraks and wide jeans".

According to Colin Shattuck and Eric Peterson, a scooter boy is — more specifically — "one who attends scooter rallies and accumulates event patches on a garment of some kind". The garment is conventionally a flight jacket, but can be any of several other types of jacket, a mechanic's, a motorcyclist's, or even a Parka.

The scooterboy with anorak, accessory-covered scooter, and industrial work boots was a late-1960s/early-1970s halfway house between the Mods and the Skinhead subculture that Scooterboys were to evolve into.

Music biographer Mick Middles observes that the flight-jacketed scooter boy with Doc Martens shoes was a slightly different image, favoured by scooter boys in the late 1970s scooter revival. He describes the Lambretta boom period from 1968 to 1973 as having "[g]iant packs of scooter boys surg[ing]" out every Sunday from the big Lancashire towns […] avoiding the faster, dirtier motorbiking 'greasers' and clashing with each other in Blackpool and Southport. Those were the days of Crombie coats and two-tone 'tonic' trousers, of brogues […] and Barathea blazers, of smartness, neatness, in clothes as in music." He characterizes the late 1970s revival, in contrast as "something of an oddity" where scooter owners were "more concerned with the machine — the mechanics, the practicalities — than the look".

References

• Brake, Michael (1990). Comparative youth culture: the sociology of youth cultures and youth subcultures in America, Britain, and Canada. Routledge. ISBN 9780415051088. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hazlehurst, Kayleen M.; Hazlehurst, Cameron (1998). Gangs and youth subcultures: international explorations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 9781560003632. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Middles, Mick (1999). The rise and fall of The Stone Roses: breaking into heaven. Omnibus. ISBN 9780711975460. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Muggleton, David (2000). Inside subculture: the postmodern meaning of style. Berg. ISBN 9781859733523. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Shattuck, Colin; Peterson, Eric (2005). Scooters: Red Eyes Whitewalls and Blue Smoke. Speck Press. ISBN 9780972577632. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Further reading

• Grainger, Ian "Iggy" (2008). "Scooter Boys Through the 1980s". Scooter Lifestyle. Veloce Publishing Ltd. ISBN 9781845841522. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)