My wife daily drives a Nissan Figaro which is nice, and I wouldn't mind having a small daily driver as well. I have been looking at the Honda ACTYs or the Daihatsu Atrais. For a daily commute of about 13 miles mostly in town am I crazy? I love how quirky they are and how fuel efficient they are.
Does anyone here have experience with them and can say yes they are livabke year round?
The kei trucks seem to get imported and used as farm vehicles fairly often. I've never personally dealt with one but I'd expect something very basic and work truck like. For a low speed in town commute I imagine it'd be fine if you can deal with RHD.
In reply to 75280z :
What's your climate? What's your traffic density?
Where do you live? Are kei trucks street legal there?
I have no idea, but I love where your head is at!
No. Hell NO, don't be absurd. Put down the crack pipe and check yourself in for therapy. Ask family members to instantly set up an intervention if you ever think such crazy thoughts again.
Don't do it.
I mean it.
I never actually DD one, but back in the mid 80's my then girlfriend, now way way in the past trainee wife's dad had one as his DD / work vehicle. He had a couple in a row in fact. They were actually Bedford Rascals, which were just badge engineered Suzuki Carry's. 970cc, 44hp, 72" wheelbase, center of gravity about equal with the Eiffel tower. Forward control with crash structure that made a 1949 VW Type II look like a Sherman tank. They were horrible, horrible, loathsome things to be in and drive. They didn't feel safe in mid 80's rural England where a Ford Fiesta was a family car and OG Range Rovers looked like LWB Escalades. I once got it on two wheels, not by berkeleying around, but by trying to keep up with traffic through a roundabout.
I understand the attraction as a novelty for a farm, estate or glorified pit kart. But as a street vehicle for anything other than your local Memorial day parade, I literally can't say enough bad things about.
BTW, don't do it.
Yup, I'm serious.
I drove a kei truck a little, it belonged to a customer. It was fun but certainly more of a side by side/off road toy. If i remember right, it had short gears. Stop and go traffic would probably get old real quick. And id never feel safe commuting in one. Just too small for me to feel safe,
I drove a Samurai for years: no doors, no top, no tailgate, no carpet, plastic bucket seats, barely any heat, a factory AM/FM stereo that would vibrate the bottom of the barrel speakers, Super Swamper tires that would howl and vibrate. 89hp, manual.
I LOVED that thing. Do it
I've driven an Acty and a HiJet(actually the ones on RegularCarReviews). Pretty similar but the Acty was much nicer, quieter. They both got a bit buzzy at 55 but 45 and lower they were fine. If I didn't have to leave my small town I'd love to own one.
ebonyandivory said:I drove a Samurai for years: no doors, no top, no tailgate, no carpet, plastic bucket seats, barely any heat, a factory AM/FM stereo that would vibrate the bottom of the barrel speakers, Super Swamper tires that would howl and vibrate. 89hp, manual.
I LOVED that thing. Do it
A Samurai is way, way more truck than an Acty.
One huge resounding no with well thought out reasoning, several sures. I am still be tempted.
I live in Las Vegas, NV so hot alot
So Kei can has been moved to the bottom of my want list. Only to be used as a pit vehicle towed in a small enclosed trailer towed behind my bus based luxury race car hauler/camper rig.
Streetwiseguy said:ebonyandivory said:I drove a Samurai for years: no doors, no top, no tailgate, no carpet, plastic bucket seats, barely any heat, a factory AM/FM stereo that would vibrate the bottom of the barrel speakers, Super Swamper tires that would howl and vibrate. 89hp, manual.
I LOVED that thing. Do it
A Samurai is way, way more truck than an Acty.
The Acty interior is 10x more cozy than my Samurai. If I can drive this every day (while scraping ice off my seats in the mornings then someone can easily deal with this thing.
A samurai is quite large compared to a Kei truck. Size is the main issue to me, not interior comfort.
Either way id still love to have a samurai and a kei truck for fun.
If you fit, I think a kei truck would make a perfect city commuter though I’m Not sure I’d want to take it on the highway for more than 5 minutes,.
We had a 92 Geo Tracker for years. Same thing as a Suzuki. It’s a massive off road limo with super car performance compared to a Kei truck.
A kei truck is about 5” narrower than a Samurai. My ‘87 had 66hp, a Hijet has 60. Kei truck tires are what, ~23” high with gears in the mid-4’s? My Samurai had 33” tires on steel wheel with 3.73 R&P.
Kei truck will have an interior, my Samurai was gutted.
Like I said: if I could drive mine for several thousand miles and love every minute of it, he can drive this thing and be totally fine.
Adrian_Thompson said:We had a 92 Geo Tracker for years. Same thing as a Suzuki. It’s a massive off road limo with super car performance compared to a Kei truck.
A Geo Tracker is the “same thing” as a Suzuki SIDEKICK. Definitely NOT the same as a Suzuki Samurai. The GEO and Sidekick were like Buicks compared to the SJ-413/410. Mine (which is what I’m referring to in my posts) especially.
In reply to ebonyandivory :
Opps, sorry
captdownshift said:I'm not here to debate whether it's a good idea or a potentially fatal one, I'm here to enable.
Looks perfect for the 60 foot drive to my mail box. I could turn it around (slowly so it didn't fall over) then drive 60 feet back. No, I really don't like these little death traps in case no one has noticed, and I have thousands of loathsome miles in them.,
I did my driver's ed. in Kei vans and lots of people DD them by me. Crash safety is not a thing in these but I didn't find them horrible to drive. CoG and handling are actually not bad for how tall they are, they're a skateboard chassis so all the heavy stuff is below floor level. Driving them is overall not a bad experience for a spartan van.
I also have a Samurai and the Kei vans/trucks are generally more pleasant vehicles to DD. They don't soak up massive potholes like they're no big deal and ramp off of bumps like a trophy truck, but they do have some interior space and feel like a consumer vehicle meant to be driven by normal people doing normal things, rather than a tiny sports tractor.
I suspect the JDM Kei trucks we are seeing here in the states are quite a lot nicer than what Adrian experienced in the UK in his long ago youth. As someone else noted, they are not all the same. Do it!
Do it....and make a video .
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