Daihatsu’s high-end compact car introduced to the world 40 years ago

Daihatsu entered into a business alliance with Toyota in 1967, working together to develop a new four-wheel passenger car brand. In this issue, we look back 40 years ago, in 1974, at the first-generation Charmant, a high-end compact car developed independently by Daihatsu based on the second-generation Corolla, from the catalog of that time.

The front door panels are completely identical to those of the Corolla

The car Charmant was Daihatsu’s tailor-made model based on Toyota’s second-generation Corolla (TE20/KE20). Therefore, the 2335 mm wheelbase was shared with the Corolla, and in the visible part, the outer panels of the four-door front doors were diverted from those of the Corolla four-door sedan in the Charmant. For your information, I have included a photo of a Corolla sedan in this article, but even the author, who was a car enthusiast from an early age, knew that the base was a Corolla from that time, but did not recognize that the door panels were common.

Also, when it comes to working with Toyota, there was a precedent in the Consorte (i.e. Toyota’s Publica, the first generation Starlet), which preceded the Charmant in small cars, and we will discuss that story again when the opportunity presents itself, along with its successor, the Applause, among others.

The round-eyed four-lamps were a symbol of the upper class

The Charmant was also Daihatsu’s top-of-the-range car, so it was characterized by a more upmarket feel than the base Corolla. Symbolic of this was the design of the front mask: whereas the Corolla at the time had two round headlights, the Charmant had four round headlights (the description in the catalog was “four-lens dual headlamps”).

“These four lights are very rare in the 1400 and 1200 classes when you look around town. So when I ride a Charmant, people ask me if it’s a 1600 or an 1800.”

This is a statement in the catalog. The front grille of the second-generation Corolla was also surrounded by a grey resin grille, giving it an advanced and sporty appearance, but the mask of the Charmant was a design that expressed a typical, orthodox, deeply sculpted sense of luxury for a domestic passenger car of the time.