History of the "Cafe Racer" jacket.

[navetsea]

so probably the jacket and the british tuned bike just happened to share the same name.
probably somewhere in america while pro racer is sponsored and wear colorful racing suit, but young weekend racers wore such jacket and were gathering in cafe before hitting nearby dirt track perhaps, while the bikers with their mc jacket and harleys were gathering in bar? perhaps.

 

[handymike]

I don’t think it was all that organized in the US. People probably picked up what they could afford or find locally. Apart from greasers and beatnicks not too many groups had a “uniform look” back then in the States.

 

[navetsea]

perhaps the possibility to tuck the jacket into pants or overpants is a plus when you want to play with dirt

 

[Blackadder]

so probably the jacket and the british tuned bike just happened to share the same name.
probably somewhere in america while pro racer is sponsored and wear colorful racing suit, but young weekend racers wore such jacket and were gathering in cafe before hitting nearby dirt track perhaps, while the bikers with their mc jacket and harleys were gathering in bar? perhaps.

Interesting proposition but I doubt the Amercians would be caught hanging at a local "cafe".

 

[Carlos840]

Interesting proposition but I doubt the Amercians would be caught hanging at a local "cafe".

If the same thing had happened in the US it would be called the "Diner Racer", it doesn't have the same ring i agree...

 

[Blackadder]

If the same thing had happened in the US it would be called the "Diner Racer", it doesn't have the same ring i agree...

I was thinking the exact same thing and gas station in stead of service station.

 

[lina]

^^ I have a hard time thinking that the two things (jacket and bike) being called by the same name are unrelated. Can't see the phrase arising independently in the US.

 

[Seb Lucas]

I'd be interested to see if anyone can find a reference to a Cafe Racer that predates 1990.

 

[dudewuttheheck]

I'd be interested to see if anyone can find a reference to a Cafe Racer that predates 1990.

When I bought my first cafe racer, I never would have guessed the name could have been that recent... but it's actually possible. It's crazy how wrong our perceptions can be sometimes.

 

[lina]

When I bought my first cafe racer, I never would have guessed the name could have been that recent... but it's actually possible. It's crazy how wrong our perceptions can be sometimes.

Yes, and it is also striking how widespread it became. I just did a quick search on the various makers, and Aero, Vanson, Schott, Himel, Goodwear, Diamond Dave, and Lost Worlds all use the phrase "cafe racer" to describe this style. I sent an email to Denny at Aero asking if he knows when Aero started using the term. I will report back if he responds. Meanwhile, if anyone has connections at any of the jacket makers send a quick question and see if they have any info on when they started using the term. Right on.

 

[Seb Lucas]

This looks like a job for Dave Himel.

 

[navetsea]

Diner Racer jacket, better have full action front

 

[lina]

Diner Racer jacket, better have full action front

Yeah, I’m getting there!

 

[lina]

So, I got a quick and gracious response from Denny at Aero, who checked with his father Ken, who gave the following reply, with some good info! I have put in bold some key points. Seems like definitely a US style jacket, as we've suspected. Interesting that Ken says they first called them "Dirt Racers," probably over from US dirt track or flat track racing. All very interesting, if not definitive. Here's Ken:

"Here’s what I know or don’t know :>)

No idea where or when the name became married to the stand collar style now known as a Café Racer but it wasn’t until the late 80s I can ever recall the style being so named.

During the 70s and 80s we brought hundreds of these over from USA, many had been made to fit a detachable a lining. It was rare to get one that still had it’s lining. They weren’t great sellers. Good ones fetched £25 or so when a plain A2 in a small size made at least £100

I never recall these being called Café Racers by anyone back then. Ever.

Café Racers or Kaff Racers were not jackets but the (generally scruffy) guys that hung around transport Cafes or Kaffs as they were know in The UK, rode a bike from one greasy spoon to the next but were thought very uncool by us guys in our Mini Coopers and Coffee Bars.

They all wore cross zips or Rivetts Highwayman type jackets, always British.

The first such jacket I recall Aero making was in 1985 and we only did that style as we didn’t have enough leather for a regular collar. We made a few more in the first workshop, (half a dozen maybe?) never named them, maybe a year or two later we did some more called them Dirt Racers, before we tidied up the neck line and renamed them “Café Racer”. This would be in the late 80s, no idea where the name came from, might have been our Japanese agent that coined the name, it certainly wasn’t me.

On the naming subject, we were the first folk to call the classic DB Coat by the name “Barnstormer” when we launched our version, that name has gone into the English language to describe the style but you won’t find it ever referred to that name before 1987."

 

[lina]

And now, a friendly and informative response from Himel just came in. Complicates the picture a bit, and also gives us some ideas for places to look. Notice in bold, he remembers knowing them as "cafe racers" in the 90s. And he also emphasizes the racing connection, and lack of standardization of terms until relatively late:

"I spoke with several older folk who made jackets in the 90s and 2000s. First, the classic single rider was a very popular style from the 50s onwards. Brands included them as a core style for men and women but it was seen as a more of a gentleman's jacket then the double style synonymous with movies and the like... certainly you can see cafe racers appear in films in fewer numbers. That being said....makers made thousands of them, by the 1970s they are the most common style in vintage jackets, likely because they were easy to build, clean, simple and good for racing. The owner of Brimaco was making 2000 of them a week in the early seventies, he used to go to the isle of man to scope what styles people were wearing and which brands so he could "compete" better.... and eventually started his own flat track race to test his jackets. So Fidelity, Brooks, Brimaco made their bread and butter on these jackets in the seventies. Basically me and my partner in the 90s started the vintage clothing section on ebay when it first opened and we used to call them cafe racers, no idea why, thats what we called them because that was what we knew them as....that was in the mid nineties. So as ebay grew everybody just copied our auctions.


Now...regarding popular culture....I think if you guys look up archive shots of Isle of man races you can determine their popularity, and old moto mags will probably mention them here and there....and catalogs....its the best way. Keep in mind brands like to formalize the names of their jackets to sound sophisticated...but until the sixties a lot of these guys were getting custom built jackets....for racing...I cant speak to the subcultures of britain or canada, I wasn't there, and who knows in America...obviously the uniform of the harley rider was the double rider, jodphur and fancy gaberdines..."

 

[Monitor]

While on the subject, I'd also like to know why do people call these "double rider" and "single rider" jackets? Didn't this originate from the Japanese having no grasp on the language whatsoever and slapping words together they think sound cool - like they often do in Manga and Anime? What's "double" on an asymmetrical zipper jacket? Overlapping front? Ugh...

 

[dudewuttheheck]

Thanks for the info @lina . Both sources at least confirm that the name was not used before the late '80s at the earliest and wasn't widespread before the 2000s probably. Crazy that the name is that recent. I never would have guessed that initially.

 

[Mandarin]

While on the subject, I'd also like to know why do people call these "double rider" and "single rider" jackets? Didn't this originate from the Japanese having no grasp on the language whatsoever and slapping words together they think sound cool - like they often do in Manga and Anime? What's "double" on an asymmetrical zipper jacket? Overlapping front? Ugh...

This is just my guess, but "double rider" sounds like it comes from the notion of a double breasted pattern applied to a riding jacket.
Cross zip and straight zip are more intuitively eloquent.

 

[lina]

While on the subject, I'd also like to know why do people call these "double rider" and "single rider" jackets? Didn't this originate from the Japanese having no grasp on the language whatsoever and slapping words together they think sound cool - like they often do in Manga and Anime? What's "double" on an asymmetrical zipper jacket? Overlapping front? Ugh...

This is just my guess, but "double rider" sounds like it comes from the notion of a double breasted pattern applied to a riding jacket.
Cross zip and straight zip are more intuitively eloquent.

I've sometimes wondered about these terms as well, though I never thought too much about it. In another email to me David Himel briefly said, "as for single rider vs double rider...this cross over refers to the collar style," which I admit is not entirely clear to me. I guess he means the way the cross zip collar, when zipped up and buttoned up, gives the double layer of leather, the overlapping front as @Monitor says. And maybe as @Mandarin says it's the double breasted nature that gives the style its name -- perhaps a shortened form of "double breasted riders jacket"..? Just speculating..

Anyway, I am interested to see if anyone can find out more about nailing down the CR designation for the simple racing shirt. Anyone with access to old catalogues or magazines, as Himel suggests?

 

[Carlos840]

So i have been looking at all the tiny vintage adverts and catalogues that you can see all over the Rin Tanaka books.

It seems every US brand back then called the cafe racer a "Shirt" or a "Racing Shirt": Buco 53, 56, 57, Beck 56, Sears/Roebbuck 56.
Taubers calls theirs a "competition Shirt" in the 60s
Bates adverst show a "basic custom jacket" that is customized with either a "mandarin collar" or a "sport collar", also 60s.
NO mention of a "cafe racer" anywhere.

Cross zips are usually just described as "motorcycle jackets" with no real mention of them being specifically a cross zip.
They are just called "motorcycle jackets" or "leather jackets"
The only mention i can see anywhere describing the way they close and trying to make a distinction between cross zip and center zip is Taubers in the 60s describing them as "diagonal zipper closure", that's it.