We’ve always had a soft spot for the little Daihatsu Copen; in fact it’s one of our great regrets that we never got to drive the tiny roadster before it ceased production last year. James May famously called it the ‘Panasonic Ferrari’ and now the compact roadster’s replacement has been revealed through three different concepts, before the Tokyo Motor Show.
Daihatsu operates as a compact-car-only subsidiary of Toyota and they’ve certainly gone quiet of late with most of their models ceasing production and/or sales coming to an end in various world markets. But now the news of a return to the compact Copen convertible seems set to change all that. And, no, we don’t know why they decided to change the Daihatsu Kopen’s spelling this time round.
The Daihatsu Kopen show cars are known only as the Kopen, Kopen RMZ and Kopen XMZ respectively, and they wear aggressive front ends with refreshingly angular headlamps and big honeycombed grilles to discern them boldly from the round and soft shape of the previous Copen. The plastic cladding of the Kopen XMZ is joined by the heavily-moulded bonnet and boot lid and we think it really is a splendid little effort from the Japanese maker.
The 660cc three-cylinder engine from the previous Copen is still fitted and is matched to a CVT transmission with steering-wheel-mounted paddle shifters that drive the front wheels. Performance figures are not available but the previous Daihatsu Copen was just 3.3 m long, weighed just 830 kg, and produced 47 kW and 110 Nm.
As is popular with modern concept cars of the moment, the Daihatsu Kopen also offers a minimalist interior with a smartphone-like touchpad centre console controls to go with the digital instrument cluster. We can see the Daihatsu Kopen Concept already appears in a moderately road-ready stance, if you accept the bold outline and large wheel arches as concept touches for the XMZ to give it a more rugged look.
