Daihatsu Concept Cars – Driven To Write

I Want to Tell You a Story

Singalonga’ Sirion.

Mention the name Max Bygraves to anyone under fifty and you will inevitably elicit blank stares. In the 1970s when UK television was in its heyday, Max^[1] was the doyen of Saturday night TV entertainment. Crooning a ballad, he would then relocate to his armchair, emit the title phrase (which had the public impersonating, ad Infinitum) to begin his raconteur session, replete in chunky knit cardigan. Adored for years, by housewives and knitwear aficionados alike, he most likely encouraged an entire generation into the pleasures of yarn.

Looking out my workplace window recently, you can only imagine my surprise to find the automotive version of the London born troubadour – a twenty year old Daihatsu Sirion. Cardigans are somewhat unfashionable garments nowadays but this story contains a few twists, as cable-knit. Get settled in your comfiest chair, grab (carefully) a hot drink and a biscuit and Continue reading “I Want to Tell You a Story”

Hello Kitty

Daihatsu: Committed to cute since 1951.

When all boils down, Western culture leaves little room for anything other than the normative. If it isn’t masculine, it’s feminine (with slow acceptance of gender neutrality) but when parameters are so rigidly defined we must head to Japan for inspired creativity. The keijidōsha-car dimensions you have to play with are (all maximum) 3.4m long, 1.48m wide and just two metres tall. Go figure out a way to Continue reading “Hello Kitty”

Tears Are Not Enough

Daihatsu’s abortive 1991 MX-5 fighter. Could it have been a winner?

daihatsu X-021 — 1991 Daihatsu X-021. (c) carstyling.ru

It could be said that the arrival in 1989 of the Mazda MX5 was the catalyst, but in reality, it was part of a movement which had been building for some time. Ever since the compact, lightweight open two-seater had been relegated to the outliers of the specialist carmakers, the enthusiast press began agitating for a mainstream roadster revival.

Those leading manufacturers who had abandoned roadsters (or were soon about to) Continue reading “Tears Are Not Enough”

Bonsai Aphrodite

Compact and comely, the Daihatsu Copen Coupé is something of a balm to the crossover contagion.

Despite the inexorable decline and likely demise of the small sports car; victim to the kind of commercial logic that has seen crossovers and their ilk take over every sub-niche, there remains one market that is seemingly still immune from contagion. Japan’s Kei car scene.

Daihatsu’s diverting little Copen roadster requires little introduction given that Driven to Write has warmly spoken of its compact pleasures in the past. The first series Copen was officially discontinued in 2012, and since then, owing to Daihatsu’s regrettable withdrawal from the European market, Kei-car enthusiasts have been denied its current incarnation.

The contemporary Copen was designed from the outset, not only to be more angular and somewhat more technical in appearance, but also to Continue reading “Bonsai Aphrodite”

Reasons To Be Cheerful

Amid a landscape characterised by an unremitting and frankly repugnant aggression within mainstream European car design, thank heavens for the Japanese.

Daihatsu’s 2017 Tokyo concepts. Image: AutoGuide

September’s IAA motor show at Frankfurt was as dispiriting a illustration of an industry adrift as one could realistically hope not to witness. (Thankfully, I didn’t). Whether it was the remote and soulless autonomous concepts, (step forward Audi), the endless parade of evermore vulgar and over-wrought SUVs, or the even more depressingly torpid production offerings, Frankfurt was (with one or two exceptions) something of a bore. Continue reading “Reasons To Be Cheerful”

‘Harmony With Nature’ – 2006 Daihatsu D-Compact X-Over

Another day, another Daihatsu.

Daihatsu’s concept cars have been many, varied and in a good many cases, quite bonkers. Which is not to denigrate either them or the company which inspired them. Ideas they had aplenty, the real shame was that owing as much to their straitened circumstances as a lack of corporate nerve (perhaps), much of the invention and wildly creative thinking never particularly manifested itself in production form. Continue reading “‘Harmony With Nature’ – 2006 Daihatsu D-Compact X-Over”