This Taiwanese scooter has a confusing name and thinks it's a Kawasaki H2
It's (sort of) named after the Mamba snake and it looks suspiciously like the Kawasaki H2, but the SYM MMBCU scooter certainly makes an impression
It’s an immensely competitive scooter market out there, so how does one stand out among the crowd of other equally tempting options? Well, if you happen to be the designer of the SYM MMBCU, you endow it with a look inspired by a motorcycle at the very other extreme end of the scooter scale.
Yes, while the all drama, all moody Kawasaki H2 hyper-sportsbike might not seem the obvious ‘go to’ for tips on how to really make your new scooter pop, much like a face tattoo on a small child, it’s hard to ignore SYM’s decidedly familiar take on the supercharged icon.
Evoking the spirit of ‘sugomi’ - Kawasaki’s ‘art of motion’ design muse - the MMBCU ‘fangirls’ with its sunken diamond-shape central headlight, flanked by sharply-styled air intakes.
While the borrowed design traits become fewer as you travel down the MMBCU - it is a scooter after all - the green-purple iridescent paint job has literal shades of the H2, while even the promo shots appear to have been superimposed on a background we feel we’ve seen before in Kawasaki’s press bumf.
And then there is the name… a mouthful of unobvious letters coupled together to read like a deck of Scrabble tiles.
Bizarrely, explaining why the SYM MMBCU is named as such just makes the whole situation even more confusing somehow, with SYM managing to get MMB from the African Mamba snake, the C from crossover and the U from… unique. Yeah, we don’t know either…
Anyway, the MMBCU is a 158cc, CVT gearbox equipped scooter aimed directly at the Honda ADV150 and - jokes aside - does cut a dash with its distinctive (if familiar) edgy design.
It might make its way over to the UK too, with Taiwanese company SYM having established a decent foothold in the lucrative scooter market over the years with its expansive range of 125. 300 and 500cc models.
