Kei car, known variously outside Japan as Japanese city car, ultramini, or Japanese microcar, is the Japanese vehicle category for the smallest highway-legal passenger cars. Similar Japanese categories exist for microvans, and kei trucks. These vehicles are most often the Japanese equivalent of the EU A-segment.
The Mazda Carol is a kei car manufactured by Mazda from 1962 until 1970. The Carol name was revived again with Mazda's 1989 re-entry into the kei car class with the Autozam brand. Since 1989, the Carol has been a rebadged model manufactured by Suzuki for Mazda, based on the Japanese Suzuki Alto. The first two generations of the modern era Carols received unique bodywork, but since late 1998 the nameplate has been strictly a badging exercise.
The Mazda Porter and Porter Cab are a series of small kei trucks that were produced from 1961 to 1989 by Mazda, mainly for sale in the domestic Japanese market. Export versions of the Porter were labelled E360. The Porter was replaced by the Autozam Scrum, a rebadged Suzuki Carry.
The Mazda Chantez is a two-door kei car that was introduced by Mazda in July 1972. The Chantez had a longer wheelbase at 2,200 mm (86.6 in) than most of its competitors and featured the powerful two-stroke "AA" engine also seen in the Porter. With 35 PS, top speed was 115 km/h (71 mph) and the 400 m (0.2 mi) sprint was dispatched in a sprightly 20.6 seconds. In more recent testing of a 1972 GF II, 0–100 km/h came up in 35.8 seconds. The engine was installed longitudinally powering the rear wheels, and the spare tire was installed next to the engine on the right side.
After an early flirtation with V-twin engines, Mazda's small cars of the 1960s were powered by OHV straight-2 and straight-4 engines. This family lasted from 1961 until the mid-1970s. Today, Mazda's keicars use Suzuki engines. It was produced at the Hiroshima Plant in Hiroshima, Japan.
The Daihatsu Fellow Max is a small Japanese automobile in the Kei car class. Originally introduced as the Daihatsu Fellow, the name was partially retained for the Max Cuore (1977) and then again for the 2000 Daihatsu Max.
The Mitsubishi Pajero Mini is a kei car produced by Mitsubishi Motors from December 1994 until June 2012.
This is a list of engines produced by Mitsubishi Motors since 1964, and its predecessors prior to this.
The Mitsubishi Minica is a kei car produced by Mitsubishi Motors (MMC) mainly for the Japanese domestic market from 1962 to 2011. It was first built by Shin Mitsubishi Heavy-Industries, one of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' three regional automotive companies until they were merged in 1964, and as such predates MMC itself. In Japan, it was sold at a specific retail chain called Galant Shop. In 2011, the car was replaced with the Mitsubishi eK.
The Suzuki Fronte is an automobile that was first introduced in March 1962 as a sedan version of the Suzulight Van. The nameplate remained in use for Suzuki's Kei car sedans as well as some other commercial-use vehicles until it was replaced by the Alto name in September 1988. The word "fronte" means "forehead" or "front" alluding to the fact that the car is front-wheel-drive.
The Mitsubishi 3G8 engine is a range of three-cylinder powerplant from Mitsubishi Motors, introduced in the fifth generation of their Mitsubishi Minica kei car. In common with other contemporary engines in the class, it could be specified with many advanced technologies despite its diminutive size, including multi-valve cylinder heads and double overhead camshafts. The top-of-the-line Dangan ZZ variant was also the first kei car to benefit from turbocharging. In 1987 Mitsubishi was the first manufacturer to supercharge a kei vehicle, and in 1989 became the world's first production car to feature five valves per cylinder, ahead of similar developments by Bugatti, Audi, Ferrari and Toyota.
The Mitsubishi Colt Galant GTO was first shown as the Galant GTX-1 showcar at the 1969 Tokyo Motor Show. Sales began in November 1970, when it was the flagship hardtop variant of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries's then-new Colt Galant sedan. The nameplate was revived in 1990 for the Mitsubishi GTO, although this name was only used in the Japanese domestic market.
The Mitsubishi 4A3 engine is a range of alloy-headed inline four-cylinder engines from Mitsubishi Motors, introduced in 1993 in the sixth generation of their Mitsubishi Minica kei car. It shares a 72 mm (2.8 in) bore pitch with the 3G8-series three-cylinder engines, but has a considerably shorter stroke so as to stay beneath the 660 cc limit imposed by the Kei class.
The Mitsubishi Minicab is a kei truck and microvan built and sold in Japan by Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors since 1966. In Japan, it was sold at a specific retail chain called Galant Shop. An all-electric model of the Minicab, called the Minicab MiEV, is sold in the Japanese market since December 2011. It was also sold by China Motor Corporation (CMC) in Taiwan as the CMC Verica, starting in 1985. Since February 2014, the Mitsubishi Minicab is a rebadged Suzuki Carry andor Every.
The Mitsubishi Toppo is a light recreational vehicle (RV) produced by Mitsubishi Motors from 1990 until 2004 and then from 2008 until 2013. The original version was derived from their Minica kei car. The name is a portmanteau of the English "top" (roof) and the Japanese "noppo" (lanky).
The Mitsubishi 2G1 engine is a water-cooled iron-block two-stroke twin-cylinder engine built by Mitsubishi Motors for the kei car class from 1968. They were first introduced in the first generation Minica to replace the otherwise similar but air-cooled ME24 powerplant. The difference of nomenclature compared to the ME24 is due to Mitsubishi's 1967 change of engine naming practice, 2G1 meaning it was in the first family of two-cylinder gasoline-powered engines. The "0" in "2G10" means that it was the first displacement version produced, with numbers after a dash then denoting the various subiterations.
The Wuling Dragon was a series of cabover microvans and kei trucks made by SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile, the Chinese joint venture with General Motors of the United States of America. The Dragon is the successor of the earlier Liuzhou Wuling LZ110, which was based on the 1977-1984 Mitsubishi Minicab.
The ME21/24 engine was Shin Mitsubishi Heavy-Industries' replacement for the 309 cc single-cylinder overhead valve ME20 engine. Unlike its predecessor, this was a two-stroke, a concept to which Mitsubishi was to prove faithful for its smallest engines until the 1972 introduction of the Vulcan 2G21.
The automotive industry in Japan is one of the most prominent and largest industries in the world. Japan has been in the top three of the countries with most cars manufactured since the 1960s, surpassing Germany. The automotive industry in Japan rapidly increased from the 1970s to the 1990s and in the 1980s and 1990s, overtook the U.S. as the production leader with up to 13 million cars per year manufactured and significant exports. After massive ramp-up by China in the 2000s and fluctuating U.S. output, Japan is currently the third largest automotive producer in the world with an annual production of 9.9 million automobiles in 2012. Japanese investments helped grow the auto industry in many countries throughout the last few decades.
The Suzuki FB engine is a series of two- and three-cylinder two-stroke engines that was produced by the Suzuki Motor Corporation from October 1961 until November 1987. They were used in a number of Kei-class automobiles and light trucks. From the original air-cooled 359 cc (21.9 cu in) straight-twin version the FB series developed through a number of different models having different names, ending with the water-cooled, three-cylinder LJ50. The names used for various versions of this engine often refer to the chassis code of the cars in which they were introduced, until Suzuki changed their engine naming system sometime in the first half of the 1970s.
