The Coolest Little Cars I’ve Ever Seen
Jul 15th, 2008 by msdanielle
One my first impressions in Japan was on the highway from Narita airport to the Hotel Pacific in Tokyo. Dog-tired, I looked out my window and to my right was a little blue car that looked very familiar — a Volkswagen R32. Whaaaaaaat…! That really boosted my excitement level. Immediately I looked around the road to see what other cars were familiar — not many, to say the least.
Hmmm…that one looks sort of like a Scion xB. Hmmm…is that a Mini-Cooper? Nope. Just a tiny car.
One thing many of the cars had in common: size. These were some of the cutest, tiniest cars I’ve ever witnessed in my life. Most looked like some variation of a Scion xA or xB, or a Smart Car — the body type being either very squarish with a low front hood, or very round and stocky. Others resembled passenger vans that had been shrunken down and compressed from the sides. Some looked very similar to the Mini-Cooper. But all in all, many were very, very compact with very small tires. Some of these cars made my Scion xA look like an SUV!
Here are some pictures:
Check out how the car in the background is parked!
You can find the “Midget II Classic” on Shodo Island. There were two smaller-sized seats in this car:
The Suzuki Lapin:
My personal favorite: the Daihatsu Trevis. I would totally buy this car if it was sold here! Too bad the Daihatsu brand died in the States. Here is a picture of an older model:
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Yay for pictures! haha. That third car looks pretty cool actually. I wouldn’t mind driving that. I also like the Midget II Classic and well ofcourse the Diahatsu! Those are some great pictures! I wonder what they think of my 4Runner over there, probably a large bus or something.
Danielle, On the main page of your blog, all your social networking icons under “Share This Post:” are showing up vertical but they aren’t showing up like that on the post page, meaning that “index.php” probably has an error but “single.php” doesn’t. Just thought i’d let you know!
Alright wow, third comment, it fixed itself! LOL
car 3 is so tron! i actually saw some regular sized cars but they were in the cities outside of tokyo. it’s cool bc a lot of them have outside mirrors that fold in when the car turns off to make them more compact in the parking space
Those are some pretty crazy cars…I’ve actually been considering finding an old Geo Metro or something similar and turning it into a go-kart. If cars like these were available here, I’d have more options and a better chance of finding what I’m looking for cheap!
cool, where would you be racing it?
Nice to see the mandatory “Peace Sign” in the photo there too Danielle …. i can’t help but do it theses days, it’s almost an instant reaction soon as i see a camera.
yea after awhile you lose the hesitation
but i think that stayed in japan lol
Ms. Danielle… it is true (well, at least a lot of the times). Good things come in small packages. It’s crazy seeing just how small those cars really are.
in the cities outside of tokyo there seemed to be more average sized cars. but in the city it was tiny car central!
Japanesse seem prefer with small cars. Are the road there narrow?…In my country the peoples who live where most of the road are narrow usually prefer with little cars.
[…] Danielle is back from Japan and has a nice little post with pictures of little cars that she saw while she was there. I’m a car guy as many of you […]
those little cars rock! LOL
Darin
Stop for a minute and think. Why do we need to drive anything bigger than a GoKart. Just imagine the savings in space, gas and money. Perhaps those small cars you were looking at should be considered huge.