CarBrandLogos archive · Daihatsu · 1957

DaihatsuMidget

The three-wheeled workhorse that motorised postwar Japanese small business.

Photo: Mytho88 · CC BY-SA 3.0

The story

A defining chapter in Daihatsu history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Daihatsu Midget, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Japan in 1957 was rebuilding, and what small traders needed was not a car but something that could carry a few hundred kilos down a narrow street and be bought on a shopkeeper's budget. The Midget answered that: a single-cylinder three-wheeler with handlebar steering, a bench for one and an open cargo bed, built at Daihatsu's Ikeda plant.

Daihatsu Midget II Cargo 001 · Tennen-Gas · CC BY-SA 3.0

Design and engineering

Later versions gained a proper cabin, a steering wheel and a second seat, and the type became ubiquitous in Japanese cities during the high-growth years. Exports mattered too — the Midget and its imitators seeded the auto-rickshaw trade across South and Southeast Asia, and its descendants still work as tuk-tuks today.

Daihatsu Midget II 002 · Tennen-Gas · CC BY-SA 3.0

In production

Production of the original ran to 1972. Daihatsu revived the name in 1996 for a four-wheeled kei truck and microvan with deliberately retro styling — round headlamps, an upright body — which sold on charm as much as capability until 2001.

1959 Daihatsu Midget DSA · TTTNIS · CC0

At a glance