With rear wheel drive!
The Daihatsu Copen has been off the Dutch market for quite some time now, but there’s a good chance you still remember it quite well. Daihatsu is now working on a new third generation and it clearly goes back to the Copen that we knew here.
Remember the Daihatsu Copen? That mischievous ‘mini-TT’ that Daihatsu also launched here in the Netherlands at the beginning of this century? A car that got a lot of attention here in the editorial office because of its cuddliness. So much so that our esteemed colleague Lars Krijgsman bought one. We were therefore very disappointed when it turned out that the second and current generation of the Copen would not be coming our way. Moreover, Daihatsu clearly broke with the design of the first Copen, although it corrected that with the Copen Cero.
Now Daihatsu is going a big step further, because it is looking ahead to a completely new generation of the Copen that goes straight back to its origins. We see a new roadster with a modern interpretation of the front of the first Copen. According to its creators, the Daihatsu Vision Copen, as the concept car is called, is – not entirely surprising – a lot bigger, although that is of course very relative. It is 3.83 meters long, just 1.70 meters wide and 1.27 meters high. The wheelbase measures 2.42 meters rounded off. For comparison; the prototype was just under 3.40 meters long, 1.48 m wide and 1.25 m high.
Daihatsu Vision Copen
The biggest difference with the first and the current Copen, however, is in the technology. Although here too there is a 1.3 petrol engine in the front, but this time the forces do not go to the front but to the rear wheels. We can imagine that this makes the Daihatsu Copen more of a sporty roadster than ever. One with, just like before, a steel folding roof. Daihatsu is expected to reveal more details later this month in Tokyo.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl