1999 Daihatsu Hijet MPV 1.3 EFi

Updated: 29 Nov 2024

This is Peppa the Hijet (Piaggio Porter on the continent). Mid engined, RWD, built in Italy - she’s basically a Ferrari.

This summer a few friends and I took her on an epic voyage around Europe. 5,441 miles including ancient cities, autobahns, mountains, dirt roads and even the Millau Bridge. Over the whole trip the only repair we had to do was changing the brake pads after a dew days in the Alps. With four of us onboard and all our stuff on the roof she had a cruising speed of about 60/65mph but that was enough.

She’s still my daily driver and has already covered 15,000 faultless miles since I bought her in April.

Only mods are a decent sound system and a personalised living space in the back.

Comments

I never tought seen daihatsu hijet outside my country. This car is great hit in my country lot of people bought it when it came out and even today lot of them still use to carry people,farm products,including sheep and sometimes cows! Nowadays people in rural countryside still driven it. It’s dependable,cheap to maintain,cheap spare parts and cheap to fix it cause it’s simple engine.

Oh this is sweet. I wish america had more japanese compact and kei cars

It’s actually an Italian design, made by the company that makes Vespas, Piaggio. On the continent it’s called a Piaggio Porter but in the UK it’s badged as a Daihatsu. It has the 1.3 Daihatsu engine from some of their hatchbacks and it is basically just brilliant in every way haha