Chatting To My Little Welsh Friend
by Ross Finlay (01 Dec 03)

People these days are allowed to call their cars by pet names without being hauled off to the funny farm; so why shouldn’t I assume that Daihatsu is the longer version of the name of little Dai from somewhere near Llanelli? And I did chat to him, although nothing I said could correct his spelling.

Well, maybe there is an element of white-coated attendants lurking in the background of our Charade test, because what it boils down to is that you have a conversation of sorts with the odometer.

When you get into the Charade to start it up, and before the odometer gets down to the dull business of metering odos, it puts up a display saying, "Hello, Happy". This may be overstating things on a grim winter morning, but Dai keeps looking on the bright side. When you switch off, he says in a casual fashion, "See you - good-by." This is where his Welsh/Japanese education blows a fuse, but there is nothing - absolutely nothing - you can do to make the read-out change to "Goodbye".

Seeming to have somebody with you in the car when there‘s no visible passenger is just about the only eccentric feature of the Charade. Otherwise it’s a very well planned little machine, almost ridiculously roomy and with a perky three-cylinder engine of the kind which Dai and his mates are experts at designing and building.

Where The Space Comes From

There’s quite a long wheelbase, and that releases an amount of rear legroom you wouldn’t credit from a quick glance. Headroom is generous too, and this is another car which provides plenty of rear passenger foot room under the front seats.

Daihatsu says the luggage space is - well, it uses some rather optimistic adjective. In fact, with the rear seats in place the luggage capacity is pretty miserly, but you can‘t have such a roomy cabin and expect miracles of load space in a car with a tailgate rather than a three-box boot.

What appeals about the Charade as a town runabout (and we tested this not only with a woman driver but also with passengers of a certain age) is that it’s easy to park, the wide doors open at almost right angles to the bodywork, and the seats are high enough to make getting in and out no problem for the less nimble.

Our test car was the five-door SL, top of the range at a price still under £7000. It seems quite a bargain that the standard SL specification includes alloy wheels, ABS with electronic brake force distribution, speed-sensitive electric power steering, air conditioning, driver and passenger airbags, central locking and electrically adjustable door mirrors, but they’re all on the list.

Dai Makes It Move

How does the one-litre twin-cam three-pot engine perform? Very much like you’d expect from a Daihatsu engine with variable valve timing and an odd number of cylinders. In other words, it’s very perky, it’s economical, and you’re never in any doubt that it isn’t a "four".

This scarcely sporty-looking little car (with manual transmission; I don’t fancy the £695 automatic option, but I realise that some buyers prefer it) sprints off to 62mph in just over 12 seconds, and the neat chromed-rimmed instrument display shows that it can hit very close to 100mph.

As far as fuel consumption is concerned, the manual car is the most economical four-seater petrol model on the UK market, recording nearly 69mpg extra urban and close to 59mpg combined. And it has a rock-bottom CO2 figure.

Out on the open road, and without suggesting it’s something it isn’t, I’d say the Charade handles pretty well, with quite supple suspension. Sometimes, it seems to be built of nothing particularly solid, but shutting the doors produces a satisfactory clunk. In any case, this is, unexpectedly and bearing in mind the general scale, a lot of car for the money.

Price: £6995
Capacity: 989cc
Power: 57bhp
0-62mph: 12.2 seconds
Maximum speed: 99mph
Economy: 68.9mpg extra urban, 58.9mpg combined
CO2 emissions: 114g/km
Insurance: Group 5
Daihatsu figures.

Second Opinion
Who's been putting too much sugar in his coffee lately, then? In fairness to Daihatsu's UK people, I should point out that they did say they'd asked Japan to correct the spelling of "good-by". This was at the press launch, when we were driving pre-sale models, and the car tested here may well have been one of those. Anyway, apart from all that, I thought the Charade was terrific; not cutting-edge in its general design, perhaps, but usefully roomy, surprisingly rapid for a car with only 57bhp and - in addition to being a splendid city machine - amazingly good to drive on long journeys, especially ones involving lots of corners. An advantage of the three-cylinder engine is that it sounds less frenetic at a given number of rpm than an equivalent four would do, which is an aid to restful driving in itself. David Finlay.

Back to Daihatsu Road Test index
Back to main Road Test index