Daihatsu does not build many cars like the Daihatsu Charmant: a 4-door Sedan (car) / saloon / 5-door station wagon / estate/van with 1.2 L Toyota K engine#3K, built from 1974 to 1988 as the oil crises and the first emissions rules rewired the industry.
How it came about
The Daihatsu Charmant (Japanese: ダイハツ・シャルマン, Hepburn: Daihatsu Sharuman) is a subcompact car built by Daihatsu. It was succeeded by the Applause and Charade Social a little over a year after Charmant production ended.
The Charmant was heavily based on the E20/E70 Toyota Corolla platforms; model changes paralleled those of the Corolla. All Charmants were fitted with Toyota inline-four engines, ranging from 1.2 to 1.6-litres. The word charmant is French for "charming." When it was introduced, it was the largest Daihatsu passenger vehicle sold in Japan (until the introduction of the Delta Wide minivan in 1982), with the Charade supermini in the middle (introduced in 1977), and the Fellow Max (succeeded by Mira in 1980) kei car as the smallest.
The hardware
Under the skin sits 1.2 L Toyota K engine#3K; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. Kerb weight is 790-915 kg. The gearbox is a 2-speed Toyota A transmission#A20 / A20 Automatic transmission / automatic / 3-speed Toyota A transmission#A30 / A30 automatic / 4-speed Toyota K transmission#K40 / K40/Toyota T tr. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 2355 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
Where it sits in Daihatsu's history is not in doubt: the Daihatsu Consorte came before it; the Daihatsu Applause / Daihatsu Charade Social followed it; it was built at Ōyamazaki, Kyoto (Kyoto Plant), Japan. On a showroom list of its day it stood against the Volkswagen Scirocco, the Lamborghini Countach, the Volkswagen Golf. Its Daihatsu stablemates include the Daihatsu Applause and the Daihatsu Atrai.
The money
There is no federal ownership record for the Daihatsu Charmant — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.