The first scooter was invented by George Gauthier in 1902 in Blois, France. It was called the auto-fauteuil (auto-armchair) and looks like something you would drive to a picnic. It was not popular for very long because of the state of the roads at the time.
I was pretty excited when I read about this – because, you see, the inventor of the scooter and I share a last name. Sure, in France the last name Gauthier is like Smith or Johnson, but it is still very likely that we are closely related in my opinion. This would explain why I rock the scooter and ours is a dance of swift grace.
It was not until the military needed some vehicles of war that the “vespa-style” scooter would appear, and again these would wane in popularity until Japanese companies renewed interest in the scooter by modernizing the Vespa metal clunker.
