Minicab 4th (1984)

Kei van with functional beauty

 

kiyoshi Honda

―― Design concepts for new generation kei car

Around 1981, I believe, a group I belonged to was tasked with developing design concepts for a new generation of all kei cars: a 2-box passenger car, a 1-box commercial van, and a car that fell somewhere in between, a 1-box passenger car with a lot of space, each with a 1/5 concept model, I was in charge of the 1-box commercial vehicle. I designed a simple, boxy commercial van, but when it was finished, it lacked any particular features, and I thought it was not quite up to my expectations. It may have been that I was still busy working on the Pajero, which I had been in charge of until then, and I did it whithout putting a lot of effort, or it may have been that my ideas had simply dried up, but I don’t remember much about it.

Later, the 2-box passenger car and commercial van were officially launched as the 5th generation Minica and 4th generation Minicab, respectively, and I continued to work on the 4th generation Minicab alone. For passenger car design, it was normal for a design competition to start with at least 4 or 5 designers, but for commercial vehicles, manpower was usually at a minimum. Although kei commercial vehicles were produced in large numbers, they were not expected to generate large profits, and executives were not keen on them. In a sense, this meant that designers were able to work at their ease.

――　World-class design

When it came time to get to work, I decided to forget about all the concept design I had done initially and to rethink it thoroughly from the ground up.

Minicab was originally chasing Daihatsu, Suzuki, and Subaru, who were ahead of us in this field, and that had not changed much by that time. As a pursuer, it needed something one step ahead of the competition. My first thought was that all kei commercial vehicles were cheap and utilitarian, and not very appealing as a vehicle. Although commercial vehicles cannot be costly because of their practicality, I still wanted to create an attractive design that is practical yet functional and beautiful. In this sense, I wanted to create a design that would be world-class, even if it was primarily for the domestic market. Furthermore, I wanted to create a cool van that could be used fashionably in flower stores and confectionary stores in town. In reality, the market for trucks was much larger than that for vans, but as a designer, I wanted to make a cool van that was more passenger car-like.

The basic design was to have the windshield and rear window upright compared to the previous generation, with a layout that secured a large interior space and practicality, and then began sketching a refined image with surface treatment and details in each part.

 

――　Influenced Vehicle

In the meantime, a car magazine featured the Ford Cargo, a mid-size truck introduced in Europe. This truck was designed by Patrick le Quement, who later became the head of the Renault design, and despite being a truck, it had a modern, clean surface treatment and an excellent design with functional beauty. I felt this was the direction I was aiming for. The treatment of the side windows, which are lowered one level in the front, would be useful in a minicab driving on narrow farm roads.

As designers, we must value originality, but on the other hand, there could be an influence from other cars from time to time. Some call this kind of “copying”, but there is a big difference between relying on the image of the referenced design or incorporating it into your design to create a new expression. If you rely on the original design and use it exactly as it is, it is “copying,” if you are inspired by the original design and develop it from there, it is “inspired,” and if you respect the original design and add your own flavor to it, it is “hommage”. In my case, I think I was “inspired,” but I am not sure.

There is one design that became a world-famous car after being influenced by other cars. When GM design boss Bill Mitchell went to Italy, he was so impressed with the Alfa Romeo Disco Volante and Bugatti Atlantic that he showed the designers pictures he had taken and gave them very specific instructions: “Use this as a reference! Mitchell adopted Pete Brock’s sketch, which incorporated the lines around the body of the Disco Volante and the “dorsal fin” running from the roof to the rear of the Atlantic, and it became the basis for the Corvette Stingray. This was truly an inspired design.

――　“Form follows function”

Back to the story. The entire body was designed to have a simple and quality surface treatment. The side walls of the truck bed require grooved press lines for rigidity, and these were placed around the entire perimeter of the body, in the case of the van, the sliding door rails were placed there to create a unified appearance from front to rear. For vans, the SAE-standard two-lamp headlamps were placed in a low position to create a low center of gravity, while for trucks, the lamp bezels were designed for the standard round headlamps to create a separate image for vans and trucks. The side windows were lowered one step in the front to create a distinctive window graphic, which I believe adds a characteristic appeal to the otherwise monotonous design of kei commercial vehicles. Since the rear wheel houses of trucks are trapezoidal in order to keep costs down, the front wheel cuts were also made trapezoidal to match, creating a sense of unity from front to rear. Related to this, the opening line of the front doors was aligned with the actual opening, improving the fact that the door panels were larger than necessary in the previous generation model. While designing the car, I was reminded of the words of architect Louis Sullivan: “Form follows function.

――　Regret over truck rear lamp

This car reminds me of the rear lamps on the truck. Normally, truck rear lamps are minimal in size and simple rectangles, but I wanted to give them some character, so I designed the turn signal lamps to bulge outward in a semi-circle shape. I was satisfied in my own way that “form follows function” in expressing the direction in which the truck turns. A few months after the design was approved, a meeting was held to review the prototype, which was the last chance to make minor changes before the production. I looked at the truck’s rear lamps and thought, “What? The semi-circular bulge has a mounting screw and a base behind it, so the actual signaling lamps are rectangular in shape. This was designed to make the lamps cheaper. I thought to myself, “This ruins the design intent!” I thought. But I couldn’t argue that on the spot. I felt uncomfortable demanding “more cost,” and in the end, the lamp went into production as it was. Later, this rear lamp was to be used in the succeeding 5th generation Minicab van and truck, and although it probably cost several tens of yen more, I regretted that I should have insisted on it as a designer.

 

 

――　Minicabs around the world

The 4th generation Minicab was sold in various countries. The Minicab and Valica were produced and sold by China Motor in Taiwan, the Dragon by Wuling in China, the Roadster Pickup by Premier in India, and the Mitsubishi Jetstar in Indonesia, each with parts modified to meet the needs of the local market. In the U.S., it was sold under the name Mighty Mitts for limited use on golf courses.

In Japan, approximately 710,000 units were produced over 7 years beginning in 1984. This was quite a success. Some of them included the Bravo version for leisure use, which set the stage for the first outdoor boom in Japan. The fact that the Minicab was used for such a variety of purposes in various countries gives it a different significance from that of ordinary passenger cars.

March 2025