"If you don't snuggle into your sack, Father Christmas won't call." Every year my mother would issue the same threat in an effort to get me to go to sleep on Christmas Eve. As I couldn't see our chimney from my basket on the scullery floor it hardly mattered but my mother was a slave to protocol.
Being poor my father would always make my Christmas present, carving it with his own hand. The other, which had been supplied by a charity for the war-wounded, was less adroit. On one occasion he carved me a model sports car. Neatly symmetrical, its polished curves in no way resembled any of the real sports cars of the day, and, indeed, I had not ever encountered anything quite like it, until last week when I took delivery of the Daihatsu Copen.
First shown in the UK at the 2002 Motor Show, the tiny Copen proved such a crowd-pleaser that Daihatsu in Japan was persuaded to modify the Japanese model to satisfy European Type Approval regulations, and the first boat-load is expected to arrive in the UK in November.
Just 3.4 metres long, the Copen is what the Japanese call a K-Class car, a segment that proliferates in the crowded streets of Tokyo and other major cities, yet which attracts little or no demand in Europe. It may have something to do with the fact that along with their diminutive size, K-car engines are restricted to 660 cc displacement with a power output not exceeding 64 PS.
Competing with Suzuki for number-one slot in the K-Class market, Daihatsu sells more than 500,000 mini-cars a year and rightfully lays claim to knowing a thing or two about penny packet power plants. As the company puts it: 'Daihatsu has been able to spend many years perfecting its engines to provide high levels of performance, refinement and durability.'
In the Copen, this experience manifests itself as an all-aluminium, 659 cc, 16-valve turbo-powered engine developing the regulation 64 PS and a torque output of 110 Nm. The latter peaks at 3200 rpm, roughly four-tenths of the engine's maximum speed, and so despite its modest displacement the Copen engine pulls remarkably well from low speeds. In fifth (top) gear it will accelerate strongly from a little above 30 mph, accompanied by the background sound signature of the tiny turbo that whistles while it works.
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