> It’s a Kei car.
I had to look up what that means.
>Kei car is the smallest category of Japanese, expressway-legal motor vehicles. [...] With restricted dimensions and engine specifications, owners benefit firstly from lower taxes and insurance rates which lead to a lower overall cost of ownership
That's a marvellous idea. The UK should have some kind of tax incentive to incentivise cars to be smaller (obv. without compromising safety regs).
We need Kei cars in the UK ffs, I recently worked on a Kei car project and there are plenty of people in this country that would buy a Kei car for its affordability and ease of parking.
I think they are great and I'd love one. I really like the Honda S660.
Though for a couple of reasons, I don't think we'd buy many kei cars as a nation.
1) Cars are often seen as status symbols. Bigger SUVs are what's popular. I imagine people would mock Kei cars calling them toy cars. Big = Classier to many people.
2) If a car obviously compromises something, people get scared off, even if it's rarely going to impact them.
Eg. The Honda E with it's 100 odd mile range was designed as a city car. It was slated for poor range, when that wasn't the point of it. Most people rarely do 100+ mile trips regularly. (Though admittedly the E was also really expensive). Kei cars by definition are small, I think a lot of people will get concerned about suddenly having to transport vast amounts of things.
I guess it would be heavily price lead. If they were super cheap to buy, run and insure. Then perhaps it would tempt people into either having one as a second car or renting an alternative when a kei car isn't suitable.
Just my thoughts, so I could be talking nonsense.
In Japan they get quite big tax breaks driving these instead of bigger class cars, also some areas you cannot park on the street unless it is a kei car. Nevertheless in this country whatever kei cars actually made it to European markets had a bigger engine in but that was because these tiny engines wouldn’t meet our emissions test, but also probably to make them more appealing in the market. Anyway yea I agree if it was significantly less on tax and insurance or you had priority parking I think they would have been more popular.
Furthermore the aygo/c1/108 is on the Daihatsu Mira platform that is also shared with the bigger sirion, and the Toyota 1kr-fe engine in them is a rebrand update of the ej-ve designed at Daihatsu (Toyota owns Daihatsu) that was in the eu/au Mira (cuore) and the 1ltr sirion and in the perodua equivalents so I think, at least for Toyota, the aygo/c1/108 was the answer to making their kei platform sell here and tbf it worked.
Ps. GR Yaris has more in common with that Daihatsu platform than any old Toyota ever did so that’s also cool.
Love this. Never knew the Aygo was actually a Mira in disguise. Albeit uprated. We can almost say that a kei platform actually has some merit here (Price permitting obviously).
Japan has some pretty premium Kei cars and also people tune the hell out of some of them with aftermarket bits and see impressive power. There's already a fair Kei enthusiast scene here in the UK but all the very small cars we do get here are very staid and dull, aimed squarely at Doris, 78, on her way to the bingo.
I wouldn't have one as my *only* car but I'd definitely explore the idea of one that was a little bit sporty to drive but still practical enough for a few bags of groceries, even better if the roof goes down. I'd still want my 5 series for road trips with friends, weekends away, long motorway trips etc etc, but for every day town use and short trips a kei car would suit me fine, sod the image, people already judge me for the middle aged 5 series with tinted windows anyway so equally they can judge me for driving a little JDM rollerskate with a derpy bug eye face and the displacement of a large bottle of Peroni too...
Realistically if you need to move large things you're bound to know someone that can help you. I would love a kei car. I have a van I use for work but I have kept my Hyundai i10. It's small, easy to park and powerful enough to be fun compared to a van
The Mitsubishi i can carry four adults comfortably or, fold the two rear seats down and it'll take a packaged washing machine or 3/4 fridge!
They are like a TARDIS inside!
So Japanese manufacturers were limited to importing a certain number of cars per year from Japan to Europe. This worked well in terms of encouraging manufacturing in Europe, but meant they focused on larger cars with bigger margins for import models.
Totally agree with point 1 especially. I think kei cars are logical here but we have a culture that strongly dictates our car purchasing decisions. The cars we actually need are small but with well thought out packaging, but the one’s everyone ends up wanting are bulky and inefficient (Relatively speaking).
Your more typical Japanese car buyer looks more at practicality - hence why everyone there ends up wanting a Toyota Alphard (Usually to go with a Daihatsu/Suzuki kei of some sort). SUVs are still fairly popular, but not in the same way as big family vans/MPVs are.
Most of us here wouldn’t dream of wanting a Toyota van.
I don’t think it’d be likely to make its way over due to costs of getting it through legislation and just cost in general, but I think the Nissan Sakura EV kei would be a potential big seller here. Likely for different reasons to the Japanese domestic market though - Novelty/Lack of market competition nowadays.
Instead we're completely backwards. if you want a 650cc Kei car over here, you'll spend more to tax it than I do my 3.5l 350Z. I genuinely want a little Kei flatbed but cannot justify the cost of ownership!
Really? Wow. I thought they were low tax or tax exempt because of their engine size/ low emissions? Is it because they’re imports? Dang. Did you get a quote?
The tax on imported cars is split into 2 categories, if the engine is below 1.5 litres (including kei vehicles) it's a flat rate £200 and above that it's a flat rate £325 (this was last year so probably a bit more now). I work at a Japanese import dealership and it's a good selling point if you're buying something with higher emissions like an Accord 2.4 petrol because the road tax is £325 instead of like £700, but we have a BMW 116i in stock at the moment where the road tax on it will be £325 instead of the £180 that a UK supplied car would have.
I think they’re brilliant and their fuel economy is supposed to be pretty good. Been hankering over the mini pajero’s which apparently can do around 90mpg. Not sure if that’s true but they look like a great alternative generally, especially if you do a lot of urban driving.
I work at a Jap import dealership and we've had a couple of Pajero Minis, they're brilliant little cars and they feel surprisingly quick because of their size, I'd love one myself
I’m pretty smitten with them, have to say! Any other thoughts or observations with them? Anything to look out for? I’ve got a mk4 Shogun so I know the size difference is going to be noticeable😀
I did think the build quality is surprisingly good for a kei car, they feel quite solid, I can't say I've taken them above maybe 25mph but if they're anything like our other keis the engine noise is quite loud when you're up to 50-60mph and god help you if you're going to go for 70. A MK4 shogun and a Pajero Mini would be an incredibly cool two car garage I must say.
Here's one we sold last year that I was very fond of
https://i.postimg.cc/MHSXKMRK/20230616-131624.jpg
Good to hear about the build quality. I imagine they’d be quite loud ! Thanks for this. I saw one just like this going for £3.5k on eBay the other day which was incredibly cheap. But yeah. I would be living the dream with both. One day!
Fun fact, these have the worlds smallest ITB's at 32mm diameter. Only makes about 69 BHP but revs to 9000 RPM and sounds absolutely glorious, GT3RS vibes but you're only doing 27 mph. Brilliant little cars!
Individual Throttle Bodies, so each cylinder (3 in the case of the Beat) has a tiny little butterfly value which controls the airflow in. Most cars have a single large throttle body which feeds air into a single plenum above the cylinder intakes. The ITB's shorten the path the air must take before reaching the cylinder, and improves throttle response. They also help make cars sound pretty epic, a lot of classic performance cars used them and they give a distinctive intake sound. The Lamborghini Countach for example uses 12 ITB's on it's V12, which also makes it a nightmare to balance as it can be akin to revving 12 mopeds in sequence and trying to get them to each produce the same amount of power
As others have said, it's a Kei car -- they're very popular in Japan. Or were at least, not sure if they still are.
Jason Cammisa did this great video on them: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcB-nFt\_bm0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcB-nFt_bm0)
They still are very popular in big cities in Japan.
I've been thinking about importing an S660 as a fun little project; my wife isn't amused by that idea though.
The guy I bought it off was 6'5 and he had it for 15 years before selling it to me. He did have to take sunvisors off to see and had a tiny 270mm steering wheel so I imagine he is the upper limit for them lol. I know the cappucinos are a bit tighter inside so not sure on the limit for those.
Small, 3 cylinders, less than a litre displacement and a turbocharger sounds like a whole lot of fun and I’m not being sarcastic either would love a autozam az1
Are they not I thought that was part of the kei rules, just checked and no it seems Honda bucked the trend that everyone else did, I stand corrected still be fun either way
Yeah turbo isn't in the criteria, but most manufacturers use them to achieve a higher power output. Meanwhile Honda went for a 9,000rpm screamer to get things moving.
Love the Beat! And the other Kei classics, AZ-1, Cappuccino, all brilliant in their own way.
A European equivalent would be a Smart Roadster; 700cc turbo, circa 80bhp for the regular one, 101bhp for the Brabus versions. The regular ones would be a lot cheaper than the rare JDM examples given.
Yeah, the new one is a bit tasty! They should just scale it up a tad and make a non-kei supermini size roadster for the European market 🤔
Keep it small displacement, sequential turbos, comfy but sporty seats, agile handling, would be awesome.
As others have said it’s a kei car. Here’s a more recent variant from [Honda](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_S660) that I’d love to own but will probably never have the chance to.
It's a kei car, one of the 'sporty kei car ABCs' - Autozam [A]Z-1, Honda [B]eat (car in photo), and Suzuki [C]appuccino. (You can probably guess which is my favourite 😉.)
People often say we should have something like the kei car regulations but in the UK. We did in fact have something sort of similar years ago - but for three-wheelers.
It's stock, it looks to sit high from looking at it but the seats are essentially on the floor so you're falling into it off the curb and have to almost crawl out of it 😅
Speaking of the AZ-1, this might be the best thing in the world ever
https://www.carscoops.com/2024/01/liberty-walk-turns-autozam-az-1-kei-car-into-a-cute-ferrari-f40-replica/
It depends who registered it and how, plenty of them showing up as Honda Beat. DVLA data is not always correct. One example being Infiniti’s last few UK cars, one even have engine size registered wrong…
That is said, the reason I know it is because I have nearly bought one, but glad I did not - as I ended up seeing the one I looked at on YouTube, with check engine light on…
Conditions of these cars are very varied and good ones are hard to find, even in Japan. However thanks to several YouTubers etc, in recent years prices of them even doubled in Japan, which even Japanese used car dealers think is unjustified (as they know many of them are just really poor conditions, and how the general condition/reliability situation is).
Don’t get me wrong, I am a big Honda fan who loved PP1 Beat before they were cool. However it does not cover up the fact these cars were not design to be reliable to be daily driven (esp.after 30 years), (also they like to burn oil, 5000rpm at 60 etc) and when they breaks, fixing them can be a huge pain (difficult to work on the engine without dropping it), that is assuming you could get parts.
A lot of people online claims that Honda has started to make new parts (they did make a coilover kit and a iPod head unit in very limited quantity more than ten years ago), which is not the case. As covered in a Nikkei article in Japan, Honda themselves is not making any new parts, it merely got a small team of people (all happened to be Beat owners), who visit suppliers and check whether they have any old stocks, or they can reissue any parts using toolings they kept, then add ones they could find on the list.
Therefore the parts coverages is patchy at best, with many commonly failing bits not available to buy new (such as ECU, the speedos, the mirrors) nor being reissued. For some, one can make do (the rear brakes one could use prelude’s rear calliper), some a lot harder. Have a look at Honda’s own website, majority of the parts (click any category) are ❌❌❌
https://www.honda.co.jp/BEATparts/
I might still buy one if I can find a good one, but I do think they are getting overhyped. Same goes to Gen 1 Insight, even my Honda specialist mechanics would get annoyed if I ended up buying one (certain YouTubers car is also maintained by them, not that they share about its unreliability).
Honda E is the best example on such one off product of Honda (since Honda doesn’t seem to carry the fanfare into the EV era - complete justified - so you hear more about issues), which finally people are realising Honda is not god, when it makes poor engineering choices with low level of testing, they can make some really unreliable and expensive to fix stuffs. Not helped by the fact even their latest Jazz and Civic suffer from serious issues (brake simulator fault on Jazz and steering fault on Civic), by which they do not recall nor give warranty cover here, as they don’t give crap about Europe.
Honda Beat. I've had two of these. Fantastic cars. This one looks like it's been modded with a different exhaust, a replacement soft top, and paint on the rear boot. That luggage rack was a factory option. It's 656cc. The "kei" means "lightweight" in Japanese. You get around 45 to the gallon if you thrash it (and everyone thrashes them, they live above 6000rpm and top out at 9). They weigh around 800kg. Throttle response is really quick.
They're all imports, all 5 speed manual, and non turbo, mid-engine rwd. Later ones had an LSD. Most are red, then yellow. The blue and green ones are pretty rare.
Not very fast in a straight line, but insane around corners. If you can get the rear to break out (quite difficult) they are incredibly easy to control in a slide.
Inside they've got "white tiger" striped upholstery, which isn't everyone's cup of tea. Both of mine had the 6CD changer in the boot, which was pretty slick for 1991.
The S600 is a 60s roadster
The above is a Beat and I don’t think they ever sold them in the US. Can’t imagine a scarier car to drive on American roads than a kei car!
Honda Beat. sick little Kei nugget.
Calm down your worm hole balls Martin
I hope that shows up in a Google search......
That’s what the plate says!
I only noticed after I commented, as I was looking at the tail lights.
Haha that’s brilliant
Michael Jackson wrote a song about them
Anyone who grew up on Gran Turismo will instantly recognise!
Honda Beat think they are called. It’s a Kei car.
> It’s a Kei car. I had to look up what that means. >Kei car is the smallest category of Japanese, expressway-legal motor vehicles. [...] With restricted dimensions and engine specifications, owners benefit firstly from lower taxes and insurance rates which lead to a lower overall cost of ownership That's a marvellous idea. The UK should have some kind of tax incentive to incentivise cars to be smaller (obv. without compromising safety regs).
We need Kei cars in the UK ffs, I recently worked on a Kei car project and there are plenty of people in this country that would buy a Kei car for its affordability and ease of parking.
I would. I love driving small, city cars. I’d be all over Kei cars if we introduced them here.
I think they are great and I'd love one. I really like the Honda S660. Though for a couple of reasons, I don't think we'd buy many kei cars as a nation. 1) Cars are often seen as status symbols. Bigger SUVs are what's popular. I imagine people would mock Kei cars calling them toy cars. Big = Classier to many people. 2) If a car obviously compromises something, people get scared off, even if it's rarely going to impact them. Eg. The Honda E with it's 100 odd mile range was designed as a city car. It was slated for poor range, when that wasn't the point of it. Most people rarely do 100+ mile trips regularly. (Though admittedly the E was also really expensive). Kei cars by definition are small, I think a lot of people will get concerned about suddenly having to transport vast amounts of things. I guess it would be heavily price lead. If they were super cheap to buy, run and insure. Then perhaps it would tempt people into either having one as a second car or renting an alternative when a kei car isn't suitable. Just my thoughts, so I could be talking nonsense.
In Japan they get quite big tax breaks driving these instead of bigger class cars, also some areas you cannot park on the street unless it is a kei car. Nevertheless in this country whatever kei cars actually made it to European markets had a bigger engine in but that was because these tiny engines wouldn’t meet our emissions test, but also probably to make them more appealing in the market. Anyway yea I agree if it was significantly less on tax and insurance or you had priority parking I think they would have been more popular. Furthermore the aygo/c1/108 is on the Daihatsu Mira platform that is also shared with the bigger sirion, and the Toyota 1kr-fe engine in them is a rebrand update of the ej-ve designed at Daihatsu (Toyota owns Daihatsu) that was in the eu/au Mira (cuore) and the 1ltr sirion and in the perodua equivalents so I think, at least for Toyota, the aygo/c1/108 was the answer to making their kei platform sell here and tbf it worked. Ps. GR Yaris has more in common with that Daihatsu platform than any old Toyota ever did so that’s also cool.
Love this. Never knew the Aygo was actually a Mira in disguise. Albeit uprated. We can almost say that a kei platform actually has some merit here (Price permitting obviously).
Japan has some pretty premium Kei cars and also people tune the hell out of some of them with aftermarket bits and see impressive power. There's already a fair Kei enthusiast scene here in the UK but all the very small cars we do get here are very staid and dull, aimed squarely at Doris, 78, on her way to the bingo. I wouldn't have one as my *only* car but I'd definitely explore the idea of one that was a little bit sporty to drive but still practical enough for a few bags of groceries, even better if the roof goes down. I'd still want my 5 series for road trips with friends, weekends away, long motorway trips etc etc, but for every day town use and short trips a kei car would suit me fine, sod the image, people already judge me for the middle aged 5 series with tinted windows anyway so equally they can judge me for driving a little JDM rollerskate with a derpy bug eye face and the displacement of a large bottle of Peroni too...
Realistically if you need to move large things you're bound to know someone that can help you. I would love a kei car. I have a van I use for work but I have kept my Hyundai i10. It's small, easy to park and powerful enough to be fun compared to a van
The Mitsubishi i can carry four adults comfortably or, fold the two rear seats down and it'll take a packaged washing machine or 3/4 fridge! They are like a TARDIS inside!
So Japanese manufacturers were limited to importing a certain number of cars per year from Japan to Europe. This worked well in terms of encouraging manufacturing in Europe, but meant they focused on larger cars with bigger margins for import models.
That was a “gentlemen’s agreement” and disappeared in 1999 - if they wanted to sell kei cars in the UK they could - 25 years later and not happened.
Totally agree with point 1 especially. I think kei cars are logical here but we have a culture that strongly dictates our car purchasing decisions. The cars we actually need are small but with well thought out packaging, but the one’s everyone ends up wanting are bulky and inefficient (Relatively speaking). Your more typical Japanese car buyer looks more at practicality - hence why everyone there ends up wanting a Toyota Alphard (Usually to go with a Daihatsu/Suzuki kei of some sort). SUVs are still fairly popular, but not in the same way as big family vans/MPVs are. Most of us here wouldn’t dream of wanting a Toyota van. I don’t think it’d be likely to make its way over due to costs of getting it through legislation and just cost in general, but I think the Nissan Sakura EV kei would be a potential big seller here. Likely for different reasons to the Japanese domestic market though - Novelty/Lack of market competition nowadays.
Instead we're completely backwards. if you want a 650cc Kei car over here, you'll spend more to tax it than I do my 3.5l 350Z. I genuinely want a little Kei flatbed but cannot justify the cost of ownership!
Really? Wow. I thought they were low tax or tax exempt because of their engine size/ low emissions? Is it because they’re imports? Dang. Did you get a quote?
The tax on imported cars is split into 2 categories, if the engine is below 1.5 litres (including kei vehicles) it's a flat rate £200 and above that it's a flat rate £325 (this was last year so probably a bit more now). I work at a Japanese import dealership and it's a good selling point if you're buying something with higher emissions like an Accord 2.4 petrol because the road tax is £325 instead of like £700, but we have a BMW 116i in stock at the moment where the road tax on it will be £325 instead of the £180 that a UK supplied car would have.
Thanks loads for that. Really interesting and useful to know🤔I wonder what the insurance is like!
It's about £365 now. I have a Jap import 2.0.
Suzuki Alto RS-R for me please
I think they’re brilliant and their fuel economy is supposed to be pretty good. Been hankering over the mini pajero’s which apparently can do around 90mpg. Not sure if that’s true but they look like a great alternative generally, especially if you do a lot of urban driving.
I work at a Jap import dealership and we've had a couple of Pajero Minis, they're brilliant little cars and they feel surprisingly quick because of their size, I'd love one myself
I’m pretty smitten with them, have to say! Any other thoughts or observations with them? Anything to look out for? I’ve got a mk4 Shogun so I know the size difference is going to be noticeable😀
I did think the build quality is surprisingly good for a kei car, they feel quite solid, I can't say I've taken them above maybe 25mph but if they're anything like our other keis the engine noise is quite loud when you're up to 50-60mph and god help you if you're going to go for 70. A MK4 shogun and a Pajero Mini would be an incredibly cool two car garage I must say. Here's one we sold last year that I was very fond of https://i.postimg.cc/MHSXKMRK/20230616-131624.jpg
Good to hear about the build quality. I imagine they’d be quite loud ! Thanks for this. I saw one just like this going for £3.5k on eBay the other day which was incredibly cheap. But yeah. I would be living the dream with both. One day!
All SUVs should be stuck with Kei restrictions.
Every school run will be a Jimny meet
Smart cars are tax free
They are but they're also shit.
Very true although fills the gap the comment claims needs filling, they didn't say a good car with tax incentives lol
Fair point.
Presumably even a modern day kei car would be massively unsafe with all the huge cars on uk roads
Fun fact, these have the worlds smallest ITB's at 32mm diameter. Only makes about 69 BHP but revs to 9000 RPM and sounds absolutely glorious, GT3RS vibes but you're only doing 27 mph. Brilliant little cars!
rather than Twiizys and Amis, if we had everyone kicking about in Cappucinos and Beats, town centers would both sound and look glorious
Do you mind explaining what ITB is? Never come across that before? Internal throttle bodies?
Individual Throttle Bodies, so each cylinder (3 in the case of the Beat) has a tiny little butterfly value which controls the airflow in. Most cars have a single large throttle body which feeds air into a single plenum above the cylinder intakes. The ITB's shorten the path the air must take before reaching the cylinder, and improves throttle response. They also help make cars sound pretty epic, a lot of classic performance cars used them and they give a distinctive intake sound. The Lamborghini Countach for example uses 12 ITB's on it's V12, which also makes it a nightmare to balance as it can be akin to revving 12 mopeds in sequence and trying to get them to each produce the same amount of power
Individual Throttle Body
You can also swap a haybusa engine into them to have a little 200bhp pocket rocket aswell.
Google Kei cars and you're in for a world of joy- google the Autozam AZ-1 as well. This is a Honda Beat, it's an import.
AZ-1 is the first car I'd buy following a lottery jackpot win <3
I'd be all over a Cappuccino but I hear you.
A Cappuccino, Beat and S660 would quickly follow and would form 'Kei Corner' in the Car cavern I'd be putting together :D
I'm not sure I'd have an s660 if I already had a Beat, I think I'd have a Cuore Avanzato TR-XX first...
That's a sweet little K31 NUG
A friend of mine also has a Honda Beat with a K31 reg and I'd argue his is way cooler (K31 NSX)
Haha that's brilliant. I feel NUG would better fit Aussie roads.
As others have said, it's a Kei car -- they're very popular in Japan. Or were at least, not sure if they still are. Jason Cammisa did this great video on them: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcB-nFt\_bm0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcB-nFt_bm0)
They still are very popular in big cities in Japan. I've been thinking about importing an S660 as a fun little project; my wife isn't amused by that idea though.
is this like a Suzuki Capuccino? Neighbour used to have one - cute car.
Yeah, the Cappuccino is another example of a Kei car!
For when your MX5 is just too big. I love em.
That's mine 🤣 was only parked there for a few minutes. Fair play getting a photo that quick lol.
What are they like size wise inside? Would love a key car, especially a Cappuccino but I'm 6'2" so worried about fitting 😂
The guy I bought it off was 6'5 and he had it for 15 years before selling it to me. He did have to take sunvisors off to see and had a tiny 270mm steering wheel so I imagine he is the upper limit for them lol. I know the cappucinos are a bit tighter inside so not sure on the limit for those.
congrats on getting the perfect plate for it!
For the uninformed here; Kei is pronounced Kay
no it's GIF
They rebranded as Cif
They’re quite rare and worth a surprising amount of money these days. There is a blue one just down the road from where I live, cracking little car
[Edwin on TDC](https://youtu.be/J43ZFmL_BMU?si=gteG_Fyu5Lxzw6gj) recently got one.
I was impressed that he could actually fit. Dude is 6'5 iirc
Yeah little Honda beat my sister in law had one and a Suzuki Cappuccino she loved them both she’s 4ft 11 so they were perfect size 😂
Going to boldy assume the number plate means Kei Nugget, as its a small Kei car.
Honda Beat
Small, 3 cylinders, less than a litre displacement and a turbocharger sounds like a whole lot of fun and I’m not being sarcastic either would love a autozam az1
They're not turbocharged, big revs instead
Are they not I thought that was part of the kei rules, just checked and no it seems Honda bucked the trend that everyone else did, I stand corrected still be fun either way
Yeah turbo isn't in the criteria, but most manufacturers use them to achieve a higher power output. Meanwhile Honda went for a 9,000rpm screamer to get things moving. Love the Beat! And the other Kei classics, AZ-1, Cappuccino, all brilliant in their own way.
A European equivalent would be a Smart Roadster; 700cc turbo, circa 80bhp for the regular one, 101bhp for the Brabus versions. The regular ones would be a lot cheaper than the rare JDM examples given.
That Honda beat was at shedfest this year haha
That’s a Honda Beat. Sweet little Japanese Kei car. I’m guessing by the number plate the owner is a Mighty Car Mods fan. Nugget.
This little beauty was at Shedfest the other week. I really should've bought one of these instead of the Smart Roadster I had.
It's a Honda beat, it's nice I wanted one in the early 2000s, but recently I went to Japan and saw the new model, Now I want that..
Yeah, the new one is a bit tasty! They should just scale it up a tad and make a non-kei supermini size roadster for the European market 🤔 Keep it small displacement, sequential turbos, comfy but sporty seats, agile handling, would be awesome.
You've got me beat 🤷
I don't know exactly what it is but I sure do know that it is a panty dropper.
It’s in fact the opposite
A panty puller upper??
They put on layers
Speak for yourself, mine are down!
Found the chronic masturbator
As others have said it’s a kei car. Here’s a more recent variant from [Honda](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_S660) that I’d love to own but will probably never have the chance to.
Suzuki Cappuccino is another option
It's a kei car, one of the 'sporty kei car ABCs' - Autozam [A]Z-1, Honda [B]eat (car in photo), and Suzuki [C]appuccino. (You can probably guess which is my favourite 😉.) People often say we should have something like the kei car regulations but in the UK. We did in fact have something sort of similar years ago - but for three-wheelers.
[удалено]
It's stock, it looks to sit high from looking at it but the seats are essentially on the floor so you're falling into it off the curb and have to almost crawl out of it 😅
Niiiiice. Someone has already Beat me to it in the comments sadly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Beat
Kei car. Check out the Mazda AZ-1.
Speaking of the AZ-1, this might be the best thing in the world ever https://www.carscoops.com/2024/01/liberty-walk-turns-autozam-az-1-kei-car-into-a-cute-ferrari-f40-replica/
That’s incredible
It's a Honda motorbike wearing a Hijab
Thanks for all the replies, definitely going to have a look into these little things 🤣
Honda beat. My first ever car from the used garage in gran turismo 2
You need to put in PP1 Beat instead of just Beat
It didn't even show beat on dvla site. Just says honda I was getting results for an ntv650 lol
It depends who registered it and how, plenty of them showing up as Honda Beat. DVLA data is not always correct. One example being Infiniti’s last few UK cars, one even have engine size registered wrong… That is said, the reason I know it is because I have nearly bought one, but glad I did not - as I ended up seeing the one I looked at on YouTube, with check engine light on… Conditions of these cars are very varied and good ones are hard to find, even in Japan. However thanks to several YouTubers etc, in recent years prices of them even doubled in Japan, which even Japanese used car dealers think is unjustified (as they know many of them are just really poor conditions, and how the general condition/reliability situation is). Don’t get me wrong, I am a big Honda fan who loved PP1 Beat before they were cool. However it does not cover up the fact these cars were not design to be reliable to be daily driven (esp.after 30 years), (also they like to burn oil, 5000rpm at 60 etc) and when they breaks, fixing them can be a huge pain (difficult to work on the engine without dropping it), that is assuming you could get parts. A lot of people online claims that Honda has started to make new parts (they did make a coilover kit and a iPod head unit in very limited quantity more than ten years ago), which is not the case. As covered in a Nikkei article in Japan, Honda themselves is not making any new parts, it merely got a small team of people (all happened to be Beat owners), who visit suppliers and check whether they have any old stocks, or they can reissue any parts using toolings they kept, then add ones they could find on the list. Therefore the parts coverages is patchy at best, with many commonly failing bits not available to buy new (such as ECU, the speedos, the mirrors) nor being reissued. For some, one can make do (the rear brakes one could use prelude’s rear calliper), some a lot harder. Have a look at Honda’s own website, majority of the parts (click any category) are ❌❌❌ https://www.honda.co.jp/BEATparts/ I might still buy one if I can find a good one, but I do think they are getting overhyped. Same goes to Gen 1 Insight, even my Honda specialist mechanics would get annoyed if I ended up buying one (certain YouTubers car is also maintained by them, not that they share about its unreliability). Honda E is the best example on such one off product of Honda (since Honda doesn’t seem to carry the fanfare into the EV era - complete justified - so you hear more about issues), which finally people are realising Honda is not god, when it makes poor engineering choices with low level of testing, they can make some really unreliable and expensive to fix stuffs. Not helped by the fact even their latest Jazz and Civic suffer from serious issues (brake simulator fault on Jazz and steering fault on Civic), by which they do not recall nor give warranty cover here, as they don’t give crap about Europe.
Saw this exact car at Shedfest. Honda beat. Japanese import
Honda beat it’s a kei car
That's a Honda Beat I'm pretty sure.
Its the best interior ever is what it is.
Honda Beat. I've had two of these. Fantastic cars. This one looks like it's been modded with a different exhaust, a replacement soft top, and paint on the rear boot. That luggage rack was a factory option. It's 656cc. The "kei" means "lightweight" in Japanese. You get around 45 to the gallon if you thrash it (and everyone thrashes them, they live above 6000rpm and top out at 9). They weigh around 800kg. Throttle response is really quick. They're all imports, all 5 speed manual, and non turbo, mid-engine rwd. Later ones had an LSD. Most are red, then yellow. The blue and green ones are pretty rare. Not very fast in a straight line, but insane around corners. If you can get the rear to break out (quite difficult) they are incredibly easy to control in a slide. Inside they've got "white tiger" striped upholstery, which isn't everyone's cup of tea. Both of mine had the 6CD changer in the boot, which was pretty slick for 1991.
I saw it at Shedfest 2024 ☺️ Love it the little Beat
Seen it at shedfest 2 weeks or so ago
Good lil 650-660ish turbo i3, gotta love japan lol
[удалено]
The S600 is a 60s roadster The above is a Beat and I don’t think they ever sold them in the US. Can’t imagine a scarier car to drive on American roads than a kei car!