| Has anyone seen a Daihatsu Charade on the street in the United States at any time during the current century? Strangely, I've now seen two of them in Denver junkyards this year. First there was this '90 Charade SE, and now we have this '89 Charade CLS. The Charade was available in the United States for just five model years, 1988 through 1992, and the unfortunately-named Charade couldn't compete with the likes of the Subaru Justy, Ford Festiva, and Geo Metro. You could get the base Charade (known, cryptically, as the CES) with a one-liter three-cylinder engine making a miserable 53 horsepower. The CLS and CLX Charades came with a mighty 80-horsepower four. The tire replacing the radiator appears to be a junkyard-installed option. Few new cars didn't have electronic fuel injection by 1989, but Daihatsu evidently felt that EFI was still bragworthy. Say what you will about the tenets of Daihatsu ownership, but 224,607 miles is quite an achievement for an 80s econobox. This generation of Charade is still being built in China, where it is sold as the FAW Tianjin Xiali.
from The Truth About Cars http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com |
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