My first experience with a kei truck in Japan came about because my father-in-law here retired.
Now, you’ll ask me: “What’s the relationship between mini trucks and retiring in Japan?”
Well it goes like this: In our part of Japan, in the countryside of Shizuoka Prefecture (and, I’m willing to bet, in the rest of the Japanese countryside), when a fellow retires he immediately buys a kei truck. If he does not have a kei truck, he’s not fully retired and the other fellows feel sorry for him. And he feels sorry for himself: “I’m Japanese. I live in the countryside. I’m retired. I don’t have a kei truck. WOE TO ME!”
So you basically do it like this: shake hands with the boss on your last day, accept a small good-bye bonus, go straight to a kei truck dealer, give him the bonus money (that’s why the boss gave it to you in the first place, he doesn’t want you to feel unfulfilled after putting in forty years at the company) and drive out with your new white mini truck.
(Of course, some guys are smart and buy a good used kei truck and save a pot of money and still get a good vehicle. I advocate this as the better deal; and that’s why I sell used kei trucks. Simple.)
So Dad picks up this kei truck, a Honda Acty, a second generation model with the 660cc E07A engine.
Now Dad can join the “Kei Truck Troops.” These guys will descend in a squad onto a field, forest lot, or onto a roadside verge and start trimming the weeds, cutting the braches, and generally maintaining a piece of land that is associated with their countryside district or region. Every member has a gas-powered weed trimmer, a selection of saws for trimming branches, and shovel, and……..a white kei truck. This is how the men in my area retire. They are very active retirees. A Japanese kei truck is for the active man, retired or not: hunter, farmer, tradesman, and more.
The Honda Acty
(I Drive My First Kei Truck and Get Told Off)
So I finally got to drive a Japanese kei truck. My father-in-law sent me to pick something up in town, I don’t remember what. But I remember how that little Honda engine just revved right up the moment I barely touched the accelerator pedal: VROOM!
The Honda E07A in line three cylinder is a happy and balanced little unit and it just loves to rev. And it revved for me. And then: “What the heck you doing?!?” shouts the father-in-law. “No need to rev the crap out of it! Incompetent ! I just got it. You’re lucky I let you even touch my kei truck.” And so on.
But, in truth, I was surprised at the response of the Acty’s engine: very sprightly little unit. But, hey, it’s a Honda. You talk Honda, you talk revs.
Now, my father-in-law, mechanically, he’s a doofus. He neglected his Honda Actys (he later bought a 1999 Acty with the extended frontal impact protection).
He rarely changed the oil, he never warmed them up before driving off (and HE always over-revved!), he shifted harshly, and he backed into an Estima van in the drugstore parking lot.
Those Acty trucks were utterly reliable. They never broke down. And they got great gas mileage.
I guess that, if I had to come up with a complaint about the Acty trucks I’ve driven, I would say that the interior feel of the third gen Acty was a bit cramped for me in that some of the interior plastic panels and such felt a bit too close and “in my face.” And, once or twice, taking a too sharp, too quick corner on a gravel back road, I noted a bit more of a tendency to oversteer than on other kei trucks that I have driven.
And, as far as Honda’s “Real Time 4WD” system goes, this is really a matter of preference. The Honda system is always “on” with power usually going to the rear wheels and only (and smoothly) going into 4WD when the rear wheels start to lose traction. I prefer making the choice of going into 4WD myself, but if you want your kei truck to do that for you, then the Honda Acty is the mini truck that offers that function.
