160903-0035 - Bicycle Powered Taxi

A Japanese man repairs a bicycle powered taxi, known as rintaku (輪タク), ca. 1950 (Showa 25).

Japan’s first postwar rintaku service was started around 1947 (Showa 22) in Tokyo. Within two years, many variations had become a common sight nationwide.

A trip cost 20 to 25 yen for the first kilometer. In 1950, the average annual salary in the private sector was 100,000 yen, so rintaku were kind of a luxury service.

By the late 1950s, almost all had vanished from Japan’s streets.

Rintaku were not a new invention. The Saitama-based company Fukuda Shokai (福田商会) got a patent for their trailer-type rintaku called Fukuda style Frid car (福田式フライドカー) in 1925 (Taisho 14).