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As if this nation's automakers needed another advantage: They are using minicar expertise to craft high-mileage cars for $4-a-gallon gasoline.
TOKYO - They are as distinctly Japanese as sushi and sumo. Sporting pug-nosed, boxy bodies and roller skate wheels, die country's iconic minicars are nearly as comic as they are compact.
Avant-garde styling and tiny 660cc engines long confined the runty run-abouts to home. Yet in Japan, the ultra-fuel-efficient minicar is king - accounting for one-third of all new sales.
Japan's most popular car isn't the Toyota Camry or even the Corolla or Yaris. Downsize it a notch. The title goes to the Wagon R, a minicar from Suzuki Motor Corp.
Nameplates such as the Wagon R - just one of five minis on Japan's top 10 sales list - draw a blank overseas. But, increasingly, this pint-sized line-up is giving local automakers a big edge in the global race to develop smaller, lighter rides.
For instance, Honda Motor Co. used minicar lessons to craft the next-generation Fit, due in U.S. showrooms this fall. The current generation already is a hot seller in America.
Mitsubishi Motors President Osamu Masuko plans a world car based on a mini platform for 2010.
"Minicars are a weakness in one way, because unique area strategy cars are no longer valid," he said. "We can make that a strength if we can use it as a base for a worldwide model."
The timing couldn't be better, with U.S. gasoline prices exceeding $4 a gallon. Japanese minicars average 42.3 mpg.
Thinking small
Legal constraints on what constitutes a minicar force engineers to innovate.
In Japanese, minis are known as kei, or light, cars. By law, they are limited to an engine size of up to 660cc, or 0.66 liters. They also have to be less than 133.8 inches long and 58.3 inches wide.
For comparison, the Smart ForTwo, with a 1.0-liter 13 engine that generates 70 hp, is 106.1 inches long and 61.4 inches wide. Neither the ForTwo nor the Mini Cooper qualifies as a mini under Japanese law.
Mitsubishi, Honda, Suzuki, Daihatsu and Fuji Heavy Industries have taken small-scale engineering to new heights by cramming their minivehicles with everything from turbo-chargers to four-wheel drive. They also have pushed the...