Whatnext2010 spotted this Japanese kei-class VW bus wanna-be in British Columbia. Cute; but needs some more appropriate wheels, though.
Cohort Sighting: VW Bus Mini-Me
– Posted on September 26, 2013
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Curbside Classics Archives
Love! That would be a neat toy for the driveway, although ghod only knows what kind of use I’d put it to.
Jim’s Kleintransporter ?
A somewhat common conversion for the Subaru Sambar van.
Is it street legal? It looks like your knees would be the bracing for the front crumple zone – just like the original VW vans.
It is in Canada
to borrow from another bit of (mildly unsettling, but still enjoyable) east-west fusion “so cute!”
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/wab/hentai/
🙂
It even has a Samba thing going on.
So when will we see a Westfalia (Eastfalia?) conversion complete with foam futon and mini-fridge? Also if this IS a Subaru conversion, shouldn’t the VW be the Subaru Pleiades trim?
Making Kei trucks into miniature US or Euro trucks is an established Japanese custom car sub-culture. The Suzuki Wagon R in Chevy Suburban guise seems to be the most popular, but sometimes they get more ambitious, check out this miniature C-10.
A further troll of Google turned up this Dodge Tradesman Bonsai Edition
On a related note, I’m not sure if Dajiban (Japanese for “Dodge Van”) is still a thing in Japan, but there was a whole subculture devoted to turning humble Dodge vans into drift machines.
I really like that look! Whoa!
Further digging brings up the name Dream Factory Blow as the supplier of these customized Keis with their website at http://www.blow-net.co.jp/ and a brief article at http://translogic.aolautos.com/2010/12/14/more-from-japan-dream-factory-blow-and-kei-cars/
and the Chevy look Wagon R
Bonus shot of another VW style custom
There was a muffler shop in my hometown that had a radically shortened Microbus as a promotional vehicle back in the eighties. Some one had just cut a section out of the car and welded the two halves back together. I would guess that the resulting wheelbase was shorter than the faux VW at the top of the article. It did get driven, mostly in parades, but it never looked like a vehicle you would want to drive cross country.
These things are for sale here in the UK quite regularly- often by the same shops that import Figaros and Paos, as well as the faux Jag Mk2 Micras.
Sambars have quite interesting specs- 4wd and a turbocharged 3 cylinder mid-mounted engine, as well as folding bucket seats that transform into a bed. The VW front end is a plastic form, and I believe clips on not unlike those Swatch watches from the 80s. Neat cars, but I’d hate to work on something that small and technology rich let alone find parts for it.
The CC-effect strikes again… One of the car dealers a couple hundred metres down the road from my home had one of these turn up on the lot last Thursday. If it’s still there next week I’ll snap some pics.
I took a number of pics of it, they’re on the cohort.
I have a friend who lives in a Western Tokyo suburb which owned one of those VW Sambars. When he bought it he emailed me a picture that purposely just showed part of it with no references to size but…there was still something WRONG about the proportion. When I commented on that & asked if it had been customized he came clean and sent me FULL pics of the van!
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