Pocket-Rocket from Japan
Although I have recently joined to SteemIt, I can tell you for sure that I found a lot of passionate people.
There is the great group devoted to promotion of science - the steemSTEM,
I found some interesting travelers and fell in love with the cryptos.
But my passion, the cars are not lagging far behind.
This post is devoted to @nelkeljdm , the man who loves Japanese cars.
Kei cars
If you are living in the USA, "normal" car would be some 5 m long pick-up truck.
In Europe, a normal car is a hatchback, about 4 - 4.5 m long.
If you are living on some Greek Island or the old town in Italy, the perfect car would be sized somewhere between the Smart and the Fiat 500.
But for Japan - it's still too big!
So, the Japanese invented the class of incredibly small cars called the Kei cars.
Maximum length: 3.3 m (now 3.4 m)
Maximum width: 1.4 m (now 1.48 m)
Engine displacement: 660 ccm
But, can it be fun?
Image
Yes, it can!
Mitsubishi DANGAN (the bullet!)
This little monster has 64 ps and 640 kg of lightness.
It was managed with the 5 valves per cylinder, turbocharger and intercooler. Back in the 90's!
Acceleration time of this little box was 8.9 s.
Back then, Golf II GTI needed 9.7 s.
Only the GTI 16V could accelerate faster than the Dangan (8.5 s)
Just look at the rev counter, 9.000 rpm before it turns red.
Under the hood, you can place a needle (but not the big needle, only the tiny one).
Prices?
I have never seen them in Europe, but according to the sources, it can be somewhere around 5.000 $
Seems fun!
I would like to try something like this. In Europe, old Fiat 500 Abarth is the closest thing
Small cars = best cars
This is pretty fun, cars don't need to be big and heavy and it doesn't really make sense from the fuel economy standpoint for them to be so.
In my vision of Utopia, there would be small, light cars for the cities and the grand tourers for the joy...
Driving something with 300 HP and 2 tons in the city at the stop-go-50 km/h is pure wasting of resources