Daihatsu Midget II

[jessef]

Saw one little Daihatsu Midget II at the port this morning.

First time I've seen one in person. Neat little things.

1 + .5 seating or one large Westerner
over the engine seating

looks like it would be nimbly navigating through downtown

[nxski]

I saw a white one of those drive past me the other day. I was wondering what it was.

[psilosin]

I've been tempted by these for a while...they look like a hoot to drive.

[thedjjack]

That is very CUTE and would be seriously fun with a little motorcycle motor swap X2

[dah_hunter]

I had one of these.. lol.. Good times..

i didnt fit very well..

Pretty sure the one i brought over was the first one in Canada..

[jessef]

wow



If it has an auto trans then it comes with 2 seats, if a 5spd then a single seater config.

4wd and A/C options.

pretty neat

[nxski]

[RichD]

Hold up. Smart cars suck but you guys like this?

I wonder what the ICBC damage is on one of these.

[nxski]

So minivans suck but you like Delica's?

Why get a smart car when you could have a Toyota iq which is even smaller and seats 4!? Quirky = cool, status symbol = lame.

I definitely wouldn't want to be in an accident in this though.

[jessef]

You don't have to get hit. It's so narrow just roll on it's side, slide under the offending vehicle until you pass through, stick out your and right yourself back up.

[nxski]

That's some Jackie Chan s*** right there!

[RichD]

I definitely wouldn't want to be in an accident in this though.

You should check the crash rating on the Smart Car vs L300. Stock L300 is very heavy, stock brakes suck, no crumple zone. I wouldn't want to be in an accident with an L300.

The thing about lighter and smaller vehicles is that they are highly maneuverable and due to low mass can stop on a dime. Impact evasion is the primary benefit. A car crash is a preventable outcome, not a random occurrence that you should shield yourself from with the biggest, most selfishly large machine you can buy. As a motorcyclist I firmly reject that.

Additionally, lower mass vehicles tend to leverage high performance materials that shed impact energy easily, matching or outperforming larger vehicles. This is the case with the Smart car, although I'm not sure about the imports.

ICBC knows this and they discount the smaller vehicles because they are in fewer accidents with fewer injuries and lower repair costs.

[nxski]

"speed doesn't kill, stopping suddenly kills".

I wouldn't want to be in an accident with an L300 either but at least I know the people in the back are pretty safe. With a bullbar, 60km/hr into a lamppost = lamppost is destroyed, vehicle is totaled, passengers are fine (happened to a friend of mine). I'd be interested to see how a midget would perform. I doubt it had the same kind of space age engineering the smart car or the iq have.

There's a really funny Hummer H2 vs smart car video where the hummer gets completely totaled (front pedals would have been driven right through the drivers legs) whereas the smart cars body panels came off but the roll cage was perfectly intact.

[RichD]

Vehicles are not passive objects in motion. My whole point is that smaller vehicles like the Midget would miss the pole or stop, while the heavier vehicles are more likely to incur carnage and destruction.

This is basic physics. Inertia is the resistance of an object to a change in motion or rest. At similar speed, more mass means more inertia.

(edit; grammar)
When something hits a heavy object like a Delica, the 2100kg+ Deli resists movement quite effectively because of significant mass. This resistance results in more absorption of energy from the impact; i.e. more damage. When something hits a lighter object like a 700kg Smart Car or one of these 500kg Midgets, the lighter vehicle is more likely to move, resulting in less absorption of energy; i.e. less damage. Less damage to the vehicle generally means less damage to the protective shell around occupants. Psilosin accurately points out that I did not describe this well. See his much better explanation down thread.

When a heavy object like a Delica is in motion, it stubbornly resists changing the direction of movement, or changing from motion to a rest state (i.e. the stop that saves). Hence it is impaired with regards to avoiding an accident when compared to a lighter object like the subject.

Crushing scenarios are a rare exception. In these, the vehicle is caught between an actor and an obstacle. Your typical example is a highway pileup involving one or more commercial trucks. These accidents are often cited as examples of why smaller vehicles are unsafe. Fact is that the vast majority of road safety concern is about city intersections, and certainly that is what we are talking about when we compare these small urban two-seaters.

[RichD]

Oh yeah 70 mpg!