Check Out Toyota’s Rad Rideable Pokemon

When Pokemon Scarlet and Violet came out for the Nintendo Switch last year, they introduced a new concept: Pokemon as motorcycles. Sure, it was possible to ride Pokemon in previous games dating all the way back to the beginning, but these were usually short trips meant to cross bodies of water or similar obstacles. There hadn’t been a Pokemon you could just hop on, ride the countryside and call your “hawg” until Scarlet and Violet’s Miriadon and Koraidon.

These two are the mascots of their respective games, which traditionally meant you wouldn’t meet them or get the chance to fight / capture them until close to the end of the game, and only after climbing a mountain or braving a huge cave filled with Zubats or….Scarlet and Violet broke with tradition by giving you Miriadon or Koraidon at the start of the game, for the reason that you’d need it to get around. These guys are some of the coolest ideas Pokemon ever had, even if the game itself had other issues.

But wait’ll you see this. Toyota, which like The Pokemon Company is based in Japan, has a special division called the “Engineering Society” devoted to off-kilter experiments. The most recent of these was to bring Miriadon into the real world by building a motorcycle to his specifications. And the results? Wow:

The bad news is, we’re not looking at a real product. This is just a prototype that will never be sold to the general public. It’s unknown what Toyota plans to do with it — our best guess is that he’ll show up as a display piece at conventions or other mass gatherings. We’ll never REALLY get to ride Miriadon, but we can look at him and dream.