When he realized his son was paying $70 a week to keep gas in his car, William Levy decided it was time to help him out. So Mr. Levy bought a scooter for his 23-year-old son Ben, a college student.

“Now he can fill up for $30 a month,” said Mr. Levy, who also has a scooter of his own.

In fact, all three of the Levys have scooters, and they are part of a growing number of drivers who are parking their cars in the name of fuel economy, leading to record sales for businesses that sell the motorized two-wheelers.

The Levys bought all three of their scooters from Scenic City Scooters on Hixson Pike, owned by Hugh Schein.

“March was a record month for us, and April has beaten March,” Mr. Schein said. “No question, it is because of the high gas prices.”

One day last week at Ultimate Scooter and Cycle on Market Street, owner Cindy Wade found herself showing scooters to six people at one time.

“I felt like I was giving a seminar,” she said.

Ms. Wade said she first noticed more traffic in her store earlier this spring when the weather started warming up and gas prices seemed to be steadily rising.

“We’ve had a surge of scooter sales. We’ve seen a 30 percent increase over last year,” she said. “It is pretty significant between March and May of last year to what we are seeing this year.”

Scooters vary widely in price — and power — ranging from about $1,300 for a 50 cc motor that goes up to 35 miles per hour to more than $5,000 for the upscale Vespas that can be ridden on the highway.

But all of those scooters have one thing in common, they are still going to get from 80 to 100 miles per gallon, Ms. Wade said.

And the two-wheelers are not just for young girls or college students. Mr. Schein and Ms. Wade agree that scooters are for just about everyone.

“It’s amazing. It’s a really big variance on who is buying them,” she said.

Scooters have experienced a renaissance in recent years with more people accepting them as a legitimate way to travel and not just for fun, Ms. Wade said. Environmentally conscious people in California have been riding them for a while she said, but it has not been popular in places like Chattanooga until recently.

“It’s been really in the past four years, and especially in 2008, you see way more scooters,” she said.

When she is out riding her own scooter, motorcyclists wave at her, proving, she said, the zippy two wheelers are gaining acceptance.

Greg Toney, sales manager for Prebul Auto Group, said these days there are just as many customers shopping for scooters as there are shopping for Infinitis and Volvos. Prebul sells Vespa and Piaggio brand scooters at facilities on Brainerd Road.

“It’s really taken off,” Mr. Toney said. “The number of people looking for scooters is increasing weekly.”

From college freshman to baby boomers, scooter riders come in all sizes, but the most common buyer is in their late ’20s to mid-’30s, he said.

Men are also buying scooters as an alternative for their daily commute.

Jared Harris, a 29-year-old police officer in Red Bank, recently traded his SUV for a scooter. He bought it from Scenic City Scooters for $2,600, and he has gone from getting 14 to 18 miles a gallon to 96 miles on one gallon of gas — but then again, that’s all his scooter will hold.

Mr. Harris’ scooter has a 150 cc motor, which means he has enough power to get up Signal Mountain, and he can ride safely with traffic on the roads for his 1.5 mile drive to work.

Also contributing to their popularity is how easy they are to ride, Mr. Harris said. Unlike motorcycles, most scooters are automatic and carry their engines low, giving them a low center of gravity and making it much easier to balance.

Ms. Wade said scooters like Mr. Harris’ are the most popular at her store because most people don’t need to go faster than 55 miles per hour around town. Most of her customers are driving within about 20 miles of their houses.

“They’re still great,” she said. “You can run down to the store, get a gallon of milk, and they’ve got storage under the seat so you can put a couple bags of groceries in it.”