The Daihatsu Esse is a 5-door hatchback from Daihatsu, built from 2005 to 2011, in the decade of stability control, dual-clutch gearboxes and the first serious hybrids. Under the bonnet: Petrol engine. Eiji Murakami drew it.
How it came about
The Daihatsu Esse (Japanese: ダイハツ・エッセ, Hepburn: Daihatsu Esse) is a kei car manufactured by the Japanese automaker Daihatsu. With a base price of ¥680,000, it was one of the cheapest new cars in Japan when launched in December 2005. According to Daihatsu, the name was derived from the Latin root for the English word "essence", but also serves as a backronym for "Eco, Simple and Smart, and Easy".
The hardware
Power comes from Petrol engine; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. It weighs 700 –. It shifts through a 3-speed Automatic transmission / automatic / 4-speed automatic / 5-speed Manual transmission / manual. The wheelbase is 2390 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
Its family tree is legible: its successor was the Daihatsu Mira e:S; assembly was at Japan. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Kia Sportage, the Aston Martin Vantage, the Audi Q7 — show what else the money bought that year. Its Daihatsu stablemates include the Daihatsu Applause and the Daihatsu Atrai.