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Because I’ve had a lifetime filled with automotive fantasies people are surprised at what cars I have up my driveway these days. There are four of them and the one that gets the most raised eyebrows is the Daihatsu Charade I was zapped at travelling at the dangerous speed of 107km/h on Labour weekend.
I love all cars — from, big, fast and hairy to what are often referred to as shitboxes. I love all cars because they all allow me to move where I want, when I want, for as long as I want, without having to walk!
I first learned to love small cars in 1986 when I went to Europe and hired a Ford Fiesta in Holland. It was 998cc, four-speed manual and would reach 145km/h on the German autobahns if you were patient. I travelled 14,000km in six weeks in that car from the North of Scotland to the Dalmation coast. I lapped the Nurburgring and Spa. I drove it flat out everywhere and it used hardly any petrol. When I got back to New Zealand I sold my Rover 3500S (V8 four speed manual) and my Rover SD1 V8 (five speed manual) and bought a small car — an Alfa Sud Sprint. It was the wrong choice in terms of longevity but my all-inclusive love affair with big cars was over.
I had a brief affair with an earlier Charade — a Japanese import De Tomaso version with turbo motor, sporty interior trim and big diameter gold anodised alloy wheels.
I bought my current Daihatsu after attending the New Zealand launch at Palmerston North where some of my learned colleagues were scoffing and sneering about the car. To them, this was a shitbox. To me it was a small car that offered a lot of interior space for one so small and the 990, three cylinder motor growled like it was much bigger.
My views were echoed by overseas reports in magazines like the real Autocar — the British one.
Hearing me defend the car against my colleagues, Toyota offered me one for a year-long, extended test. I accepted and for the next year that little blue car was our office hack. Everyone drove it — and everyone liked it because it was so practical and such fun to drive in Auckland’s traffic — “fun” and “Auckland traffic” are words that often don’t mix, but they did with the Daihatsu.
One Auckland Saturday morning, the Navigator and I had had breakfast and were downtown in the Daihatsu and we decided to go to Tauranga. There was an HSV of some variety on the rooftop carpark we leased and we headed there to pick up the beast. But we got halfway there and thought “stuff it, let’s go in the Charade”. My thinking? (A) We were already in the car and it had a tankfull of gas. (B) It was a long weekend and the road to Tauranga would be alive with cops, so 100km/h was all we would be doing. (C) It would be cheaper.
I was right on all accounts.
I got my biggest pleasure when it came to the Kaimais. I guy had whizzed past with contemptuous ease in his Falcon as we left Matamata, but when it came to the long, winding climb to the top of the Kaimais I had the little Daihatsu yowling in third gear all the way up and passed this guy on the outside of one of the tighter corners (there is a passing lane all the way up from the Matamata side and it’s great fun). Yes, I know that there’s no place on the public roads for the spirit of competition, but I had to do it.
The song “Beep Beep” was on instant replay in my head.
At the end of the year, the Daihatsu had cost bugger-all to run, it had withstood the abuse of the entire staff and Toyota asked if I wanted to buy it. I did and we came to a mutually agreeable figure.
It’s now done 130,000kms — I have driven it the length and breath of the nation several times. It will cruise all day faster than the law will allow — witness the three speeding tickets I’ve had in it — and it delivers fuel consumption in the region of 5.0L/100km all the time.
It’s had a clutch, a battery, two sets of tyres and a set of front brake pads. There have also been a couple of visits to the panel and paint doctors as well.
It’s starting to use a little oil, but it’s totally reliable, still free of rattles squeaks and groans. And it just loves being revved. It‘s the earlier model without a rev-counter, so I just rev it until it won’t rev any more. It’s not a car to love in anything other than terms of its practicality and economy. People may, and indeed do, scoff — “a grandma’s car”. That’s the sort of comment you get from blokes with a small penis of course. But, the last laugh has been on me.
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