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Junkyard Gem: 1990 Daihatsu Rocky SX

The Daihatsu Motor Company, best-known for its popular kei cars and vans in Japan, made a short-lived attempt to sell highway vehicles in the United States. From the 1988 through 1992 model years, the Charade subcompact and Rocky mini-SUV could be purchased here, after which the brand packed up and went home. As you might imagine, the Charade is very rare and the Rocky nearly nonexistent today, but my junkyard searching never ceases and I find examples here and there. Here's a 1990 Rocky, found in a self-service yard near Denver, Colorado. The Rocky name was used mostly in Japan and North America, while the rest of the world knew this truck as the Feroza or Sportrak.   Its narrow track and light weight made the Rocky good for off-road use and the price tag was reasonable, but (as was also the case with the Suzuki Samurai) it didn't fare so well as an American highway commuter. The main reason Rocky sales never really took off here, though, was the never-heard-of-it manufacturer coupled with a nasty recession.   Toyota, which owned enough of Daihatsu to have veto power over business decisions in 1990, eventually took full control of the company in 2016. Today, Toyota rakes in the yen selling Daihatsu Hijet trucks around the world.   The 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine in the Rocky made 94 horsepower.   Both the Rocky and the Charade could be purchased with a four-speed automatic transmission, but most buyers opted for the cheaper and more fuel-efficient five-on-the-floor manual. In fact, I've found but a single slushbox Daihatsu in all my years of junkyard crawling.   This little truck trundled over just past 200,000 miles of asphalt and (presumably) mud, dirt, and snow during its 31 years. For a Daihatsu, that's very impressive.   But the resale value on a well-worn small truck with three pedals and badges from a mystery manufacturer isn't so great, so here it sits. As rare as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster! In Japan, shrill cuteness sold Rockies. In Oz, the Feroza's off-road abilities kept it from being late to surfing appointments. As tough as Uncle Toby's Iron Men. The Feroza name was used in Europe as well. Intensely rad Dutch car shoppers could get the Feroza's canvas top in various 1980s early 1990s pastel colors, to match their leg warmers.

Toyota says president, chairman of scandal-hit Daihatsu unit to step down

TOKYO — Toyota Motor Corp said on Tuesday both the president and chairman of Daihatsu Motor will step down almost a year after the small-car unit said it had rigged collision safety-tests. The departures are among the most drastic changes Daihatsu has made so far, as Toyota seeks to return the brand to its roots as one of Japan's most iconic compact car makers. Toyota faces a potential hit to its reputation from the safety certification lapses at Daihatsu, as well as separate governance issues at truck maker Hino Motors and affiliate Toyota Industries. The scandals at the three companies triggered a rare apology of Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda last month. In a statement, the world's top-selling automaker said its chief executive officer for the Latin America and Caribbean region, Masahiro Inoue, will replace Soichiro Okudaira as Daihatsu's president effective March 1. Daihatsu's chairman, Sunao Matsubayashi, will also step down and will not be replaced, Toyota added. The outgoing Okudaira had worked at Toyota for nearly four decades before becoming president of Daihatsu in 2017, a year after it became a wholly owned Toyota subsidiary. Toyota Chief Executive Koji Sato told reporters, however, that the organizational change at Daihatsu was not carried out as a punishment for the outgoing executives. In volume terms, Daihatsu accounted for 7% of Toyota's total group sales of 11.2 million vehicles in 2023, including those of the luxury Lexus brand and Hino Motors. Given the misconduct over the safety test certification applications, Daihatsu also will be removed from a commercial vehicle partnership known as the Commercial Japan Partnership Technologies (CJPT), the automaker said in a separate statement. The partnership was established in April 2021 by Toyota, Hino and Isuzu Motors to facilitate technology development for commercial vehicles. Suzuki Motor and Daihatsu joined in July the same year. Daihatsu's 10% equity stake in the partnership will be transferred to Toyota, the statement said. (Reporting by Daniel Leussink and Satoshi Sugiyama; Editing by Kim Coghill & Shri Navaratnam and Miral Fahmy) Government/Legal Hirings/Firings/Layoffs Plants/Manufacturing Toyota Daihatsu

Junkyard Gem: 1990 Daihatsu Charade

The North American automotive landscape is littered with the bones of overseas marques that tried and failed to get a toehold here. Peugeot, Austin, Sterling, Yugo, Suzuki, Daewoo… the list goes on and on. Daihatsu had the backing of majority shareholder Toyota and a very successful line of vehicles in its Japanese homeland, so the idea of selling in North America seemed to make sense in the late 1980s. Things didn't work out so well in the end, but two models of Daihatsu could be purchased here for the 1988 through 1992 model years. Here's an example of the better-known Daihatsu, spotted in a Denver-area U-Wrench yard. Apologies for the beschmutzified images; I was pulling vast quantities of Junkyard Boombox parts at this yard's All You Can Carry For $59.99 Sale that day, and I got transmission fluid on the lens. The Charade was very cheap and pretty well screwed-together, but it had to compete against cheap cars from well-known makes such as Subaru (the Justy), Pontiac (the Daewoo-built LeMans), Ford (the Mazda-built Festiva), and Geo (the Suzuki-built Metro), and it was saddled with one of the worst names in automotive history. At least the suits at Daihatsu got the naming thing right with their little mini-SUV: the Rocky. Strangely, I still see the occasional Daihatsu as I roam the car graveyards of the land. I'm not sure where they hide, but they end up here. The three-banger in the '90 Charade generated a not-so-whopping 53 horsepower. Think about that the next time you moan about the new Mirage's allegedly intolerable 78 horses, or the Versa's 109. In Hong Kong, the car's Japanese origins were emphasized in the advertising. We've set a new standards for new cars todayÂ… but you can't feel the glow until you drive one away! Featured Gallery Junked 1990 Daihatsu Charade View 14 Photos Auto News Daihatsu Automotive History Junkyard Gems