Daihatsu Leeza

The Daihatsu Leeza is a 3-door hatchback / 2-door Roadster (automobile) / roadster (Leeza Spider) from Daihatsu, built from 1986 to 1993, in the age of turbocharging and the first electronic engine management. Under the bonnet: Petrol engine.

The background

The Daihatsu Leeza (Japanese: ダイハツ・リーザ, Hepburn: Daihatsu Rīza) is a kei car with semi-coupé styling manufactured by Daihatsu. It was launched in Japan in December 1986, and discontinued in August 1993 after had been largely replaced by the Opti in 1992. While having coupé lines, most of the Leezas sold in Japan were technically commercial vehicles (with strapping points and temporary rear seats) to take advantage of ample tax breaks for such vehicles.

The engineering

Power comes from Petrol engine; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. It weighs 570 –. It shifts through a 4-speed Manual transmission / manual / 5-speed manual / 2-speed Automatic transmission / automatic / 3-speed automatic. The layout matters: the engine drives the front wheels, the packaging choice that gives a small car a big cabin. The wheelbase is 2130 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.

Where it sits

Its family tree is legible: its successor was the Daihatsu Opti / Daihatsu Copen (Leeza Spider); assembly was at Japan. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Jeep Wrangler, the Ferrari F40, the BMW 5 Series — show what else the money bought that year. Its Daihatsu stablemates include the Daihatsu Applause and the Daihatsu Atrai.

What it costs now

There is no federal ownership record for the Daihatsu Leeza — 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.