Toyota Belta 2008/6

A Simple, Practical, Reliable Used Car (and 16km/l!)What A Relief! The Toyota Belta

The Belta is a Perfect Example of Toyota’s High Capability / Low Cost Economy Car Philosophy

If you’re in the market for a good, clean used car to import from Japan and you’re saying: “I want a small car that’s got good load and passenger capacity, gets good gas mileage, is reliable and cheep to run, and with good parts availability. I want small on the outside and big on the inside. I want decent styling. I want it all!” If that’s what you’re saying, then I can certainly suggest a car for you: The Belta.

These great little all-rounders were built by Kanto Auto Works (now Toyota Motors East Japan) which has always been one of Toyota’s highest scoring divisions when it comes to car manufacturing quality. When I was at Kanto, Beltas were being built at our Iwate plant, but they have also been built at Toyota plants in other countries here in East Asia.

A Bit of Belta Nomenclature

One of the best things about the Belta is that parts availability is good and is set to continue good for many years to come. When you are looking at buying a good used car to have and to hold (which is one of the main reasons for buying a low mileage used car direct from Japan), you’ve got to look at parts availability now and going forward into the future.

If the car you are looking at is very rare and has only been sold in one market and has little parts cross-over with other models, you can come to grief years down the road when you need a big job like a full engine re-build. I speak from personal experience. When my delightful, but very rare, Mitsubishi Minica Dangan ZZ Turbo

finally, at an amazing 272,000kms, needed a full rebuild after throwing a piston ring on number-2 cylinder, I could not get all the internal rebuild parts together to make the job worth it. I wept to give up that car, which is why, when our customers come to Japan Car Direct looking for an older used Japanese Kei Sports Car, we recommend going for one of the more common ones like the Suzuki Alto Works.

(For more on, Kei Sports Cars, one of my favorite classes of JDM cars, have a look on our Japan Car Direct Blog here, here, here, and here.)

Now the P90 series Belta that we are looking at here is also badged as the Yaris, that super-popular car that that has been sold in the USA, and Canada, and in many countries in Latin America. In China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and other countries in East Asia, the Belta is called the “Vios” and has sold very well. You’ll find them in Turkey and many countries in the Middle East. Even “Down Under” in New Zealand and Australia. Talk about a global car!

And parts cross-over is very good, indeed. For example, the 1,300cc 2SZ-FE used in our Belta here

has been installed in eleven other vehicles that I am aware of, including Daihatsu and other Toyota offerings.

Why Is the Belta / Yaris So Good?

If you’ll take a bit of time to look at the photos of our little Belta, you see right away that you are looking at a small car that is simple and clean, with nice lines and good interior cabin space and luggage space. I mean, look at that deep trunk! You can put a lot of luggage in there,

and yet, the Belta’s rear doesn’t stick way out behind the car, the whole package is tight and well thought out.

The engine is accessible, interior controls are all well sorted, you’ve got seat belts for five seats; you get it all, yeah! The P90 chassis Belta / Yaris is a good, simple, all round little winner of a front engine, front wheel drive sedan. (By the way, there is an all-wheel-drive version of the Belta available, if that’s what you need.)

Some Belta / Yaris Specs

On the numbers we are looking very good with compact exterior dimensions of (length x width x height, in mm): 4,300 x 1,690 x 1,460. On the inside we’ve got lots of room, indeed, rather more than you’d expect from just looking at the car from the outside. Interior front to rear measures 1,965mm, while left to right gives us 1,390mm, and floor to ceiling is a generous 1,200mm. A capacious little car.

And, one of my pet peeves, the ridiculously narrow rear door side windows and rear windows that we are getting now on so many modern cars, is clearly not a problem on these P90 series Beltas: When you look back, you can actually see what’s back there without needing a 180 degree back up camera system. Good road!

A Practical, Reliable, Secondhand Family Car from Japan: Self Import Is Best

Looking at our company, some people might think that Japan Car Direct deals primarily in used sports cars, super cars, high-end luxury machines and classics, like this Lamborghini Diablo, here,

or this Maserati Quattroporte Executive here,

that we exported recently from Japan.

But this is not the case. For our customers we also find lots of good used “bread and butter” cars like our Belta here, and we are a major exporter of that most practical machine on four wheels: The Japanese Minitruck (Kei Truck).

At JCD we love Minitrucks! Check out our Blog here, here, here, and here. Just love them!

So we are very much into the practical, real-life side of the used car world. These are the cars that keep us all on the road in our daily lives. It’s the bread and butter cars that get us “there and back again,” everyday, day in, day out.

We find good used units at the Japanese used car auctions and at the Japanese used car dealers that we partner with here. We export to many countries around the world with our main destinations being the USA, Canada, the UK, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand. (Just click on the country name to find out the used cars import rules for each destination. You’ll also find the import regulations for many other countries on our main web site under “Shipping Destinations.”)

So, if you are looking for a good used Japanese car as a daily driver, an all-rounder, a car that meets the needs of you and your family and a car that’s going to run for years and years and not cost you a bomb, just register here with us at JCD and we’ll get you into a good little unit like our nice clean, low mileage Toyota Belta.