I would say this Daihatsu Leeza ChaCha commercial is the weirdest ever: what car company would like to sell their car by claiming you are able to push it?
Was it a selling point that any typical Japanese young women in the late 80s and early 90s could push their own car? Did she run out of gas? Did the ChaCha run out of ChaCha-juice? Did the engine cut out? Did the battery die? Did she loose her key? I really don’t get the selling point right here…
Watch and see the commercial yourselves:
The Daihatsu Leeza was basically a kei car that Daihatsu started selling from 1986 onwards. The car had a sloping rear window, giving it a coupé look. This also meant that the headroom in the back of the Leeza was quite limited and impractical. Most Leezas sold were actually commercial vehicles, without full rear seats to make use of the tax benefits of the kei class. The ChaCha was only available as a limited model between 1989 and 1991. During this period the engine got upgraded from 550cc (32ps) with a four speed to 660cc (50ps) with a five speed.
The Daihatsu Leeza OXY-R (replacing the earlier 550cc Leeza TR-ZZ EFi) was the top of the Leeza line with a 3 cylinder 12 valve turbo engine outputting 64 horses, but the ChaCha only received the conventional engine.
And then there was also the Daihatsu Leeza Spider that was related to this. Daniel O’Grady from Wasabi Cars did an excellent video on that car:
Basically the Leeza Spider was a big flop. Nobody asked for it and the demand simply wasn’t there. Typically for the Japanese bubble economy the car manufacturers started to produce luxury cars with insane complicated and expensive features that never paid back. In contrary to the normal Daihatsu Leeza, the Leeza Spider was one of them.
But this ChaCha has a lot more…uhm ChaCha in it. ;)
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