The real story
In the 1970s Jakarta wanted the becak, the pedal rickshaw, off its main roads. The answer was a three-wheeler built by Bajaj Auto in India: one small two-stroke cylinder, a bench in the back and a canvas roof. The first ones were imported in 1975, and the name of the factory became the name of the vehicle.
Two-stroke engines are cheap and tough, but they burn oil with the fuel, which is where the smoke and the scream came from. From 2006 a new generation arrived: blue, four-stroke and running on compressed natural gas. Jakarta phased the orange ones out over the following decade, and by the late 2010s the city's papers were writing their obituary.
