Suzuki’s traditional kei roadster, the Cappuccino, could possibly be making a shock return subsequent 12 months, 27 years after it was discontinued. Solely now, the open-top sports activities automobile gained’t be constrained by Japan’s minicar rules, in response to quite a few the nation’s automotive publications.
Late final 12 months, Greatest Automotive journal reported of the “excessive risk” of a new-generation Cappuccino, created by way of a collaboration with Toyota and Daihatsu. The latter already builds the Copen, a front-wheel-drive kei roadster with a folding exhausting high, powered by a 658 cc turbocharged three-cylinder engine.
Nonetheless, Daihatsu’s convertible is about to bear a radical rethink, if the Imaginative and prescient Copen idea was to be believed. Revealed on the Japan Mobility Present (née Tokyo Motor Present) in 2023, that present automobile was front-engined, rear-wheel drive, bringing it nearer in structure to the Cappuccino. It additionally used a 1.3 litre engine and measured 3,835 mm lengthy, 1,695 mm huge and 1,265 mm tall, exceeding kei automobile limits in each engine displacement and dimensions.
Plainly this automobile will type the premise of the brand new Cappuccino, underpinned by the Toyota New International Structure (TNGA) however with an in-house design and suspension tuning. It’ll additionally spawn a Toyota spinoff, constructed as a contemporary reinterpretation of the Sports activities 800 and the non secular successor to the stillborn S-FR.
Extra technical info surfaced in a later Response article that said that the Cappuccino will likely be barely longer (3,895 mm) and decrease (1,260 mm) than the Imaginative and prescient Copen and sit on a scant 2,410 mm wheelbase. It’s additionally set to have a sportier, extra aggressive look than the unique, presumably to attraction to fashionable shopper tastes.
The engine, in the meantime, will take the type of a turbocharged three-cylinder (we expect it could possibly be associated to the Toyota GR Yaris‘ 1.6 litre G16E-GTS mill) with round 120 PS, double the 64 PS kei automobile restrict set by a gents’s settlement. Oddly for what is meant to be a purist’s sports activities automobile, a six-speed computerized gearbox will reportedly be fitted as commonplace, though a guide possibility can also be anticipated to be supplied. Its debut is slated for late 2026, the report added.
Enlarging the Copen/Cappuccino/S-FR trio would make sense as it will make them extra palatable for export markets, given the shrinking demand for kei sports activities automobiles in Japan. It might additionally present some a lot wanted competitors to the all-conquering Mazda MX-5. Would you get this over Hiroshima’s iconic roadster? Pontificate within the feedback after the soar.
GALLERY: Daihatsu Imaginative and prescient Copen at 2023 Japan Mobility Present
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