1998 Daihatsu Hijet on 2040-cars

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Toyota's Copen GR Sport is a tiny, racy roadster

In its home market, Toyota has a designated sport brand called GR, which is meant to invoke Toyota's Gazoo Racing division. It has three tiers of sportiness: the entry-level GR Sport, GR, and all-out range-topping GRMN. Ahead of the Tokyo Motor Show, Toyota announced it is adding to its GR Sport lineup a new mini convertible called the Copen GR Sport. Toyota pulled the Copen from Daihatsu's bank of cool minicars. Diahatsu announced its own Copen GR Sport at the Tokyo Auto Salon in early 2019. Now Toyota will sell its own hotted-up version of the tiny roadster. Toyota Gazoo Racing tweaked the new model and gave it sportier equipment and a visual update inside and out. First, let's talk basic stats. The Copen GR Sport weighs roughly 2,000 pounds and has a 0.66-liter turbocharged engine that makes 63 horsepower at 6,400 rpm and 68 lb-ft of torque at 3,200 rpm. It's front-wheel drive and is available with a five-speed manual or a continuously variable transmission (CVT) with seven-speed Super Active Shift and paddle shifters. Toyota left the powertrain alone and chose to focus on body rigidity and suspension tuning. The Copen GR Sport has specific shock absorbers, updated spring rates, retuned power steering, a new front brace, and a redesigned center brace.  Toyota made the Copen a bit more visually aggressive as well. It has a unique front bumper with side air intakes, a larger front grille, and a rear bumper with a new diffuser look. It also comes with matte gray BBS forged-aluminum wheels, LED headlights, LED fog lights, and LED taillights. GR Sport emblems on the front, side, and rear assure passers-by this is not a regular Copen. In total, eight exterior colors are available, as are multiple color options for the roof. The black interior was spruced up with Recaro sport seats with GR embroidery, a MOMO leather-wrapped steering wheel with the GR emblem, piano black accents, and a new GR instrument cluster with red accents. Unfortunately, the pint-sized roadster is only available in Japan.

Toyota's Daihatsu unit halts all vehicle shipments over widespread safety cheating

TOKYO — Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday its subsidiary Daihatsu will suspend shipments of all its vehicles in and outside Japan in a damaging safety scandal after an investigation found improper testing involving 64 models. The safety test irregularities earlier this year prompted an independent panel investigation, which found widespread and systematic problems. Toyota, citing results of the panel, said its probe found 174 new cases of irregularities in safety test and other procedures in 25 test categories, in addition to the problems reported earlier. “We are sorry to have betrayed the trust of our customers,” Daihatsu President Soichiro Okudaira told a news conference Wednesday. He acknowledged the cheating on safety testing and procedures is tantamount to neglect of safety certificates. “We take it very seriously as the problem that has shaken the foundation of an automaker,” he said. A lawyer and a member of the probe team, Makoto Kaiami, who also attended the news conference, said workers under pressure to meet management demands for tight development deadline resorted to cheating, and that the management should take the blame. The issue first emerged in April when Daihatsu reported improper testing on the door lining. Problems in the side collision testing also surfaced in May, officials said. The problems were found in 64 models and three engines of vehicles, including 22 models and an engine sold by Toyota, the company said in a statement. The investigation also found that the problems involved some models for Mazda Motor Corp. and Subaru Corp. sold at home, as well Toyota and Daihatsu models sold abroad. Daihatsu is Toyota's unit specializing in small cars and trucks that are popular in Japan. Toyota expressed “sincere apologies.” "We believe in order to prevent recurrence, in addition to a review of certification operations, a fundamental reform is needed to revitalize Daihatsu as a company,” Toyota said. Toyota said it will take a significant effort, including a review of management and business operations as well as the organization and its structure, as well as mindset of employees and that the company will provide full support to revitalize Daihatsu. Daihatsu Safety crash test

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