I went touring with the group of “rabble-rousers” on Sunday to some sort of motorbike convention. Apparently it was mostly Kawasaki motorbikes– about 150 by my count. Take a look:
Let’s see, what else… oh so apparently the leader of this bike club (the guy who I met at the motorcycle shop before) works at the Mitsubishi plant in Furukawa. And get this– the guy has a kei minivan (one of those little 600cc cars) with a turbocharger in it. And I’m sure it’s got aftermarket exhaust too, because it sounds like a little rumble monkey Civic or something similar.
When it was time to go home, how did you know which one was your bike? Do you need an Arizona flag to hang from the handlebars or something?
A lot of them have turbochargers. Maybe a little less than half. Not so unusual. I wouldn’t buy one without a turbo, because even with one, you’re not talking about a terribly fast car. I would get flash-backs to driving my grandmother’s old 1991 Saturn SL1 with 85 horsepower and an auto. Eeee.
Yeah, that’s another typical case of Japanese delusion. Regulations say kei cars need to be 660cc and since that won’t buy them enough horsepowers, they attach a turbo. Then the car still qualify as a kei car and you pay less car tax etc, but adding a turbo increases fuel consumption and emissions, hence defeating the purpose of providing incentives for people to own kei cars. Kudos to 国土交通çœ.
Oh yeah, do you have Smart cars in US? They are essentially Mercedes kei cars.
No, we don’t, or at least not yet. Too much trouble with getting them to comply with American crash safety laws thus far. There’s been talk of importing them, but that’s been going on for years. And then there was the talk of importing the A-class (never happened), and then the B-class (won’t happen, as M-B doesn’t think the profit margins will be juicy enough).
I won’t blame them for not wanting to import the B class.
The other problem with kei cars in the U.S. is that the speed limit on our freeway systems outside cities is usually around 120kph. I will guarantee you that if someone is going under the speed limit in Arizona, they will get run off the road. If you’re in a small car as well, then you’re just screwed. And kei cars start to shake at speeds above 80kph– they’re just not made to go that fast (not to mention the fact that they’re simply not built to last longer than 5 years or so).
But they’re cheap. And for some people that’s all that matters. I think turbo keis can cruise at 120kph though, with a bit of struggle.