Car sales here in Japan follow the typical Japanese retail model – customer service is key. Example – if it’s too bothersome to head down to the ‘ole dealership, a sales person will gladly drop by your home with the model of your choice and let you take a test drive. Similarly, one of the sales persons from our nearby neighborhood Toyota dealer will stop by occasionally and ring our door bell to introduce a new model and see if we are interested.
This past weekend we were out so he placed some sales literature in our mailbox – one of the brochures was for a new model – the “Tank”. Well, that intrigued me – was this a new colossal Land Cruiser? Maybe a Sequoia on steroids? What massive, bloated, behemoth was Toyota going to offer now…
After 30 years on and off here in Japan, you’d think I’d know better than to assume a vehicle’s name somehow corresponds to its function. Japan is famous for using idiosyncratic, off-beat, and quirky English names for its domestic models.
The Tank is anything but tank-like – it’s a modestly larger and up-engined version of the Daihatsu “Tanto”; a kei-jidosha or minicar. Kei car dimensions are limited to 3.4 meters in length, 1.46 meters in width and 2 meters in height – with engines having a max size of 660 cc. The Tank is 3.7 meters (146″) long, 1.67 meters66′) wide, and 1.73 meters (68″) high, with a bored out 1000 cc version of the kei-class engine.with a 996cc 1KR-FE engine, which has three cylinders and makes 71hp. As is clear from the image above, seating and interior room in these little boxes is very generous, comparable to a big American double cab pickup, except in width. There’s simply nothing that can beat these for space efficiency.
So is the Tank essentially an update on the original Scion xB/Toyota bB? The dimensions are quite similar, as the xB/bB some 9″longer, the same width, and 3″ less tall. That’s really quite close. Paul might like this as a replacement for his xB, should he ever need it. (Update: this, and the virtual identical Toyota Roomy and Daihatsu Thor, is the successor to the bB).
It’s certainly not a vehicle with a footprint any native English-speaking person would associate with the term “Tank”.
Perhaps Toyota’s naming committee missed this pic before signing-off on the final model name…
Its sister Daihatsu model is named “Thor” – another one that leaves me scratching my head…