Times Five

Kei cars are awesome. Damien O’Carroll looks at five we would love to see here.

Suzuki Hustler

In 2014 Suzuki decided that, while the Jimny is very cool, some of its customers wanted a less hardcore off-roader to tool around town in, with the occasional weekend up in the snow or out in the country that would require AWD and a slightly higher ride height. Y’know, like everyone else has now.

But its solution was way more adorable than most – the tiny Hustler. I mean, look at it – you just want to hug it.

The Hustler comes with a 660cc three-cylinder engine in either naturally aspirated or turbo forms, as well as a mild hybrid version. Of course, as it’s a Japanese domestic market model, it is available with a vast range of customisation options.

Honda S660

The spiritual successor to the legendary Beat and baby brother of the NSX, the S660 also pays homage to Honda’s first production car, the S500, an equally tiny sports car.

Mid-engined and looking like a tiny and adorable supercar, the S660 is powered by – surprise – a 660cc turbo engine that produces 50kW, but then it only weighs a scant 830 kilograms. It does weigh 20kg more in CVT form, but why would you want that over the sixspeed manual, anyway?

Honda has long teased an export model with a more powerful engine, but it has yet to deliver on that. Possibly for fear of actually looking interesting again.

Daihatsu Copen

Yes, we certainly have seen the original Copen on our shores, courtesy of the used import market, but the replacement is something that should be sold here new, even though Toyota has dumped the Daihatsu brand in New Zealand.

While the original was a cute little bubble of a car, the replacement that debuted in 2014 (two years after the original was dropped) was surprisingly aggressively styled. Well, in an angry puppy kind of way, that is.

But it turned out that the angry one was just a starter – the Robe (as the angry one was called) was joined by the Cero, a cute retro version that was very reminiscent of the original.

Daihatsu Cast/Toyota Pixus Joy

Much like the Suzuki Hustler, the Cast is a tiny, adorable AWD crossover. But unlike the Hustler – with its blatant Toyota FJ Cruiser design cues – the Cast looks like, I dunno, a squashed Mini?

It does get 175 millimetres of ground clearance, so it would be useful in mild off-road situations. Like when you have to park on the grass. That sort of ‘‘off-road situation’’.

Available with the usual turbo or non-turbo 660cc engines, the Cast is a FWD or AWD proposition, sadly only with a continuously variable transmission, but is something that Toyota NZ could drop here – it already sells as the Toyota Pixus Joy in Japan.

Suzuki Alto Turbo RS

Suzuki has sold the Alto here in a number of its iterations over the years, but the nasty 2008 model was replaced in 2013 by the much better, but still hardly inspiring, Celerio in 2013.

And while the Celerio is fine, we would rather have the current version of the Alto, particularly the hot Turbo RS version.

The current retro-inspired Alto is built in Japan (as opposed to the Indian-built previous model and the current Celerio), which is most likely the reason we don’t get it here – it would cost too much.

The fantastic Turbo RS version gets a powered-up 660cc engine (still only to 50kW) and is available in either FWD (that weighs a tiny 670kg) or AWD (720kg) forms.