Kei trucks and vans

The kei class’s first working vehicles ran on three wheels. From 1952 small firms built kei three-wheeled trucks out of scooter parts, and Hope Motor’s Hope Star of that year is called the first proper one. The Daihatsu Midget of 1957 led a boom, and until about 1960 the kei commercial market belonged to three-wheelers such as the Midget, the Mazda K360 and the Mitsubishi Leo.source 1 A few makers tried four wheels early: the Suzuki Suzulight of 1955 had a pickup sharing the front-drive car’s structure, and in 1958 Yanmar showed the KT, a cab-over prototype with its own 249 cc diesel.source 1

The rules shaped the trucks. A kei truck could carry at most 350 kg (772 lb), and 300 kg was usual in the 1960s; its engine was limited to 360 cc until 1975.source 1source 2source 3 Then came the four-wheelers: the Kurogane Baby, shown in November 1959; the Daihatsu Hijet in 1960; and in 1961 the Subaru Sambar, the Suzuki Carry, the Mitsubishi 360 and Mazda’s B360. By then nearly every major maker had one.source 1 Trucks with bonnets gave way to full cab-overs, which made the most of the bed within the size limit, and by the early 1970s the three-wheelers had gone and the market had settled on four-wheeled cab-overs.source 1 (Their place among the world’s working microcars is on our page of micro-vans.) The Hijet, the Sambar and Honda’s trucks have pages of their own and are told here in brief; the four makers whose trucks are recorded only here follow in sections of their own.

Daihatsu Hijet, 1960

The first Hijet, the L35 of 1960, was a bonnet truck of 540 kg (1,190 lb), 2,990 mm (118 in) by 1,290 mm (51 in), on 12-inch wheels.source 1source 4 The JSAE singles out the lubrication of its two-stroke, which was the basis of the separate oiling system Daihatsu later called Oil-Matic, and which was widely taken up.source 4 The Hijet became a cab-over in time, and it is the longest-running name among kei vehicles.source 1

Subaru Sambar, 1961

Fuji Heavy Industries’ Sambar, the K151 of 1961, was a cab-over when most kei trucks still had bonnets, with the air-cooled twin of the Subaru 360 at the back.source 1source 5 It weighed 395 kg (871 lb), on trailing arms in front and swing axles behind, and the JSAE praises its ride and its load space.source 5

豆腐屋さんが使っても壊れないというエピソードが出た。

The Sambar kept its engine at the back, driving the rear wheels, until 2012. In 1980 it became the first kei truck with part-time four-wheel drive, an idea the rest of the class took up, and in 1990 its ECVT was the first stepless transmission in a kei truck.source 1 Kei trucks went to the United States in the 1960s, the Sambars imported by Malcolm Bricklin best known among them, until safety rules of 1968 barred them from American roads.source 1

Honda T360 and TN360, 1963 and 1967

Honda’s first car was a truck. The Honda T360 went on sale on 1 August 1963, a semi-cab-over with Japan’s first twin-cam engine in a car: a 356 cc water-cooled four, all in alloy, with 30 PS at 8,500 rpm and, at first, four carburettors.source 6source 7source 8source 1 The engine was complicated enough to trouble mechanics, and Nakamura Yoshio called it the “monster engine”.source 6 English Wikipedia gives 108,920 built.source 8

The TN360 of November 1967 took the air-cooled four-stroke twin of the Honda N360, 30 PS, and laid it almost flat under the bed, ahead of the rear axle; the bed floor itself was a platform frame, and the back axle a De Dion.source 9 It became the TN III, the TN-V and the TN-7, then in 1977 the TN Acty, which had viscous four-wheel drive by 1988.source 9source 1 The Honda Vamos, an open truck for leisure, was built on the TN360.source 1

After 1976

The 550 cc rules of January 1976 drew different answers: some makers put a 550 cc engine in the 360’s body, others used interim engines of about 500 cc.source 1source 3 The last 360 cc Hijet ended in 1981, and Daihatsu’s Jumbo cab came in 1983. In 1987 the Hijet, the Mitsubishi Minicab and the Carry took superchargers, the first in kei vehicles, and in 1988 the Hijet Deck Van seated four.source 1 The 660 cc rules of 1990 close this page; what came after is on micro vans and utility microcars since 1990 and the Daihatsu Midget II.source 1

The trucks found a second life abroad. Kei trucks 25 years old are popular imports in the United States today: about 7,500 were exported there in 2023, by the Japan Used Motor Vehicle Exporters Association’s count, and in 2018 there were mini-truck laws in 21 American states.source 1

Tōkyū Kurogane Kōgyō showed the Baby at the All-Japan Motor Show in November 1959 and built it from 1960 to January 1962; Japanese Wikipedia’s article on kei trucks gives 1959 as its launch.source 10source 1 It was designed by Ōta Yūmo, son of the founder of Ohta, and styled by the industrial designer Ihara Kazuo.source 10

It was Japan’s first rear-engined cab-over kei truck, and much about it was unusual for its time: independent suspension on all four wheels, a water-cooled four-stroke twin, the WE, derived from Ohta engines, a low ladder frame of tubes and a roof partly of canvas.source 10 The engine had no balancer, so it shook and was noisy, and until late in its life it was cooled by thermosiphon, without a water pump, so it overheated under load.source 10 There was a Carrier truck at ¥298,000, a Commercial with a tilt, a four-seat Canvas Wagon and a five-door van.source 10

A new plant opened at Ageo, in Saitama, in May 1960, and 16,497 Babies were built that year, the first. Sales fell once the Hijet, the Sambar and the Carry arrived; in January 1962 Tōkyū Kurogane filed for reorganisation and production stopped. The company survives as Nissan Kohki.source 10 It left a song, the “Kurogane Baby Song”, with words by Nosaka Akiyuki, before his fame as a novelist, and music by Izumi Taku, sung by the Lirio Rhythm Airs.source 10

Yanmar’s Pony of 1960 shared the Baby’s basic chassis, in effect a Kurogane built for Yanmar, with Yanmar’s own diesel: a 358 cc air-cooled V-twin. It was the only diesel kei vehicle, and it did not last, because it was so weak.source 1source 10

The years above run from Mazda’s B360 of 1961 to the last Porter Cab. The B360 of February 1961 was a bonnet truck and van, the van called the Bee Van, sold beside the three-wheeled K360. In September 1963 its air-cooled V-twin gave way to the all-alloy, water-cooled four of the Mazda Carol. Mazda’s first trial of a rotary engine on the road was made in a B360. Production ended in November 1968, but from 1973 the state firm MADI built it in Burma, into the 1990s.source 11

The Porter, a bonnet truck and van, ran from November 1968 to 1976.source 12 The Porter Cab of March 1969 was Mazda’s first kei cab-over, and its 360 cc air-cooled two-stroke twin was developed by engineers from Bridgestone’s motorcycle division.source 1source 12 It ran for about 20 years with nothing more than facelifts, the longest run without a model change of any Japanese kei truck, and it never had four-wheel drive.source 12 In 1989 the Mazda Scrum, a Suzuki Carry under Mazda’s name, took its place.source 1

Mitsubishi’s first four-wheeled kei commercials came from its Mizushima works: the Mitsubishi 360 panel van and light van of April 1961, the LT20 and LT21, and the truck, the LT22, that October.source 13source 3 Their air-cooled two-stroke twin, the ME21 of 359 cc and 17 PS, sat in front and drove the rear wheels, and they would reach 80 km/h (50 mph). Kaneko Tokujirō styled them.source 13 Mitsubishi built 54,000 in the financial year 1963, and the pickup lasted until March 1973 as the Minica Pick.source 3source 13 The same base gave Mitsubishi its first kei saloon, the Mitsubishi Minica of 1962.source 3

The Minicab put a cab-over body on the 360’s chassis: the truck in May 1966 by Japanese Wikipedia’s date or August by Mitsubishi’s, the van in 1968. It kept a 359 cc air-cooled two-stroke, and the truck was 2,990 mm long, 1,290 mm wide and 1,610 mm (63 in) high.source 3source 14 In 1972 it took the water-cooled 2G10 as the Minicab W, and in 1987 a supercharger.source 14source 1

Suzuki needed a proper commercial vehicle to take on the three-wheelers, and its president, Suzuki Shunzō, ordered one developed within a year. The project’s chief, Inagawa Seiichi, insisted on simple, robust engineering: a ladder frame, leaf springs and rigid axles at both ends, and a new air-cooled two-stroke twin of 21 PS at 5,500 rpm under the seats, with a four-speed column change.source 2 Suzuki Osamu, later the company’s president and chairman, built the Toyokawa plant in nine months, ¥30 million under its budget of ¥300 million, and made his name inside the company doing it.source 2

The Suzulight Carry went on sale in October 1961 for under ¥300,000, and it sold on its larger bed, which was easy to load. Its revving engine was geared low, so it was thirsty but strong.source 2 A van followed in September 1964, the forerunner of the Every, and the second Carry, the L20 of June 1965, had Suzuki’s CCI lubrication.source 2 The photographs on this page show later Carrys at work in Thailand and Syria, and one in Bali.

For none of these trucks has a survivor count been found. The Subaru Gallery at Ōta keeps a K151 Sambar, and Daihatsu holds the drawings and papers of the Hijet L35 at Ikeda.source 5source 4 Many old kei trucks have gone abroad.source 1 The photographs on this page show Babies, Carrys, Minicabs, Mitsubishi 360s and Porters at Komatsu’s Motorcar Museum of Japan and in museums run by Suzuki, Mitsubishi and Mazda, and Mazda’s trucks in the Mazda Classic museum at Augsburg.