Daihatsu Opti

Daihatsu Opti

Daihatsu

MarqueDaihatsu
ProductionJanuary 1992 – July 2002
Power33 kW (EF-SE) / 43 kW (EF-VE) / 47 kW (EF-DET)
EnginePetrol: / 658 cc Daihatsu E-series engine#EF / EF-KL Straight-three engine / I3 / 658 cc Daihatsu E-series engine#EF / EF-EL Multi-valve / 12V I3 / 658&nb

Among the 112 Daihatsu entries in the MotorJury library, the Daihatsu Opti holds its own page in a catalogue built to record every car ever made, from series production to one-off concepts. The record places its introduction in 1992. The photography on this page is hotlinked from Wikimedia Commons under an open licence, with the photographer credited on every frame.

The era it was born into

To read the Daihatsu Opti properly it helps to place it in its decade. The 1990s were the decade of refinement — airbags and ABS became universal, Japanese build quality set the world standard, and the modern SUV segment was effectively invented. Any car launched into that world was shaped by it — by what materials, engineering and regulation allowed, and by what buyers of the day demanded. Its direct contemporaries in this catalogue, introduced within three years of it, include the Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz C-Class, the GM (General Motors) Hummer H1, the Subaru Subaru Impreza — the cars a buyer of the period would actually have cross-shopped.

The numbers, read closely

On paper, the Daihatsu Opti reads like this: the record lists its engine as Petrol engine / Petrol: / 658 cc Daihatsu E-series engine#EF / EF-KL Straight-three engine / I3 / 658 cc Daihatsu E-series engine#EF / EF-EL Multi-valve / 12V I3 / 658&nb; quoted output is 33 kW (EF-SE) / 43 kW (EF-VE) / 47 kW (EF-DET); kerb weight is recorded at 650 –; drive goes through 5-speed Manual transmission / manual / 3-speed Automatic transmission / automatic / 4-speed automatic; the layout is Front-engine, front-wheel-drive / Front-engine, four-wheel-drive. Worked together, those figures give roughly 51 horsepower per tonne — the single number that says more about how a car actually moves than any of its parts alone. Every figure above is a manufacturer specification carried by the Wikipedia infobox or the open Wikidata record for this model — nothing on this page is estimated, and where a source is silent the row simply does not appear.

Its place in the Daihatsu story

Within Daihatsu's own catalogue the Daihatsu Opti sits alongside the Daihatsu Applause, the Daihatsu Atrai, the Daihatsu Atrai 7, the Daihatsu Ayla. The record names the Daihatsu Leeza as its predecessor and the sp = uk as its successor, fixing its place in the model line's chronology. Assembly is recorded at Japan.

How this catalogue works

This library is generated, verified and rebuilt from the open record on every deploy. The catalogue skeleton comes from Wikidata, specifications from Wikipedia's infoboxes under CC BY-SA, photography from Wikimedia Commons under each file's own licence, and the ownership data from United States federal safety records. Nothing is written by hand and nothing is invented: every fact on this page traces to a public source, and every page is rebuilt nightly as those sources improve. Errors in the source record will appear here too — and disappear the night the source is corrected.

From catalogue to ownership

A specification sheet is only half a car's story. The other half — what breaks, what it costs to keep, which years to avoid — lives in MotorJury's ownership database, computed nightly from federal complaint and recall records and EPA economy data. Where the Daihatsu Opti was sold in the United States, its model years carry full ownership verdicts there.

Specifications

Transmission5-speed Manual transmission / manual / 3-speed Automatic transmission / automatic / 4-speed automatic
LayoutFront-engine, front-wheel-drive / Front-engine, four-wheel-drive
Body style3/5-door hatchback
Kerb weight650 –
Wheelbase2280 mm
AssemblyJapan
PredecessorDaihatsu Leeza
Successorsp = uk
Catalogue IDQ1157576

Specifications come from the Wikipedia infobox for this model (CC BY-SA) and the open Wikidata record, and are shown only where a source actually carries them — nothing here is estimated. Figures are manufacturer specifications, not measured results.

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What it costs to run

Ownership verdicts are computed from NHTSA complaint and recall records plus EPA economy data, re-priced for your country. Verdicts are published per model year as the data is ingested — browse them live, or open the true-cost calculator to price any year yourself.

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Rivals of its era

Contemporaries from other marques, introduced within three years of this car.