Mitsuoka Motor's 'micro car'

[Taro Toporific]

Susumu Mitsuoka, chairman of Mitsuoka Motor Co. , demonstrates a newly developed small electric car in Tokyo on Monday May 10, 2004. Called the 'micro car,' the vehicle has an overall length of 1.99 meters and works on lithium-ion batteries....(AP Photo/Kyodo
See also The Japanese Carmaker You've Never Heard Of

[Lupine smile]

I had never heard of mitsuoka until the tokyo motor show last year when this little beauty caught my eye


Hmmm hard choice, the python or the micro

[Taro Toporific]

I had never heard of mitsuoka until the tokyo motor show last year....
Hmmm hard choice, the python or the micro

I pass by a major Mitsuoka showroom everyday. It's tempting to trade-in my beater for a new Mitsuoka which are actually solid Toyotas underneath. The catch is.... the original Toyota that each Mitsuoka model is based on is 50-70% cheaper and functionally better in terms of handling. The Python reminded me a lot of a high-end kit car when to took it out for a test drive. Saaaa, I can dream....

[mr. sparkle]

Taro,
That's a TOTAL Pongi-Mobile.

There's this 3 wheeled vehicle near the Pongi Hutch
that looks really similar that I call the "Pongi-Mobile".

Tres' Chic!

[Mulboyne]

Mitsuoka: a bit of 60s Britain in today's Japan

Let's hear it for the Mitsuoka, Japan's ever-inventive number one replicar maker. A builder of offbeat cars that are consummately weird, wacky and for some, it seems, really quite wonderful, Mitsuoka occupies a space on the Japanese automotive map about the size of Rutland. If you've never heard of Mitsuoka, the first thing you need to know is that it's the brains behind the Viewt, a Nissan Micra dressed up to look like a classic Jaguar Mk II from the 60s. No kidding: brilliant or bonkers, gauche or genius, the Viewt is now a small car legend in Japan where it's a big money earner and more than 10,000 have now been sold.
...Mitsuoka can also offer you the Le Seyde, a baroque, Liberace-style pimpmobile that may well be the most unfortunate car you can buy in Japan today. Yes, you can smirk - in fact many do, just a bit, when the Mitsuoka name crops up. There again, maybe it is Susumu Mitsuoka, company founder, who is having the last laugh: the cars he creates have a market in Japan and go for much stronger money than you'd expect. So Mitsuoka's laughing all the way to the bank...more...

[Taro Toporific]

Mitsuoka: a bit of 60s Britain in today's Japan

Unlike my MGB when it was new, Mitsuoka's cars all run (Toyota drivetrain and sub-chasis).

[kurohinge1]

And now, the Mitsuoka K4 Kit-Car:



[SIZE="4"]Japanese do-it-yourself little kit cars[/SIZE]

Mitsuoka Motor . . . has just unveiled a micro kit car "K-4", equipped with a 50cc engine on its classical tested sports car body, developed for the do-it-yourself customers in Tokyo. It is composed of more than 500 parts and takes approximately 40 hours to assemble. The Kit-Car measures just under 2.5 meters (eight feet) long and can run at up to 50 kilometers (31 miles) an hour.

The expected cost of each of this vehicle is US $6,460.

[dimwit]

That micro car looks vaguely familar.

[Charles]

That micro car looks vaguely familar.

You can still buy that Lotus 7 as a kit. Why not get the original?

[Taro Toporific]

... Why not get the original?

The 50cc micro-car class does not require the dread proof-of-parking certificate which in Tokyo costs 35-to-80,000+ yen per month. In addition, the shaken-inspection is not required, license-plate costs are nil since these 50cc micro-cars are classified by the Japanese Road Traffic Law as a bicycle with a motor, hee, hee. A micro-car costs 2,500yen/year vehicle tax and 7,200yen/year compulsory automobile liability insurance. (Note that a 3000cc Lexus or Infiniti can cost about 300,000yen/year for shaken/license-plate/insurance). Sure a motorcycle or scooter makes more sense, but the micro-cars are kind of cute too.

The used prices of these cars are really cheap and they are very low mileage since it must be "fun" to drive them amongst Tokyo truck traffic.

USED PRICES for Mitsuoka microcars

Sports car type -- Model H17 Mileage 400km
Deluxe
Body color Silver
Vehicle price 714,000 yen


Sports car type -- Model H17 Mileage 150km
De luxe
Body color Moon yellow
Vehicle price 750,750 yen

[kurohinge1]

You can still buy that Lotus 7 as a kit. Why not get the original?

I stayed at this place in Goulburn where you can drive one of their rare cars for the day, and we chose the Lotus 7 replica below:



Even though I had to take my boots off because the pedals were so small and close together, I must say it was a lot of fun.

Those K-4 kit cars look like stylish go-karts - I wonder if we'll see a K-4 racing club spring up somewhere?

[Charles]

I stayed at this place in Goulburn where you can drive one of their rare cars for the day, and we chose the Lotus 7 replica below:

Sounds like fun, but there's only one problem with that place. No matter what you drive, or how fast you drive it, you just end up in Australia.

[kurohinge1]

. . . Australia.

[American Oyaji]

Didn't I say that he takes every opportunity possible to bash Australia and its people?

[Charles]

Didn't I say that he takes every opportunity possible to bash Australia and its people?

Your vile calumny is untrue, at no time in that post did I ever cast aspersion upon ozzies or their island nation. A person of any nationality can go to the resort, pick any sports car, drive as hard and as far as they like, and they'll still end up in Australia. This is a simple fact of geography. If you consider this a defamatory statement, perhaps you have a grudge against Australia.