Japanese Kei Truck as a Daily Driver?? (Subaru Sambar)

This is my 1997 Subaru Sambar. And yeah, today I'm just gonna go for a little drive and I'll tell you a few things that I like about it and some that are getting a little old after daily driving for almost three months now. So let's go for a drive and find out. Wait for connection. All right, yeah, I mean, first of all, it's the fact that you can kind of go anywhere with this. I'm hoping my 360 camera doesn't get knocked off, but that's kind of just a testament to the kind of terrain that this thing can go through. So obviously it's not the fastest thing, but it handles city streets fine and stuff like this is a breeze. I have four wheel drive on right now as well, but that's one of the other things, push button four wheel drive. So I can basically go anywhere and these aren't even knobbly tires. So that's definitely the first thing that I really enjoy about having this truck is that you're not locked in like a street car. Obviously you could do this on a street car, but I mean, I really wouldn't want to for very long. Otherwise I might really mess some stuff up. So the suspension is very stiff, but it's made to handle things like this, unlike other vehicles. So it's definitely one of the pros and I think it definitely comes in at number one for me as far as what this thing can handle and where I can go with it. So as soon as you want to go onto a city street, push the four wheel drive button, it'll disengage and you can be off. This does lead me to something I don't really care for. And that's kind of my fault. I got the one without air conditioning. So I was out of the windows up right now and it's, I don't know, maybe 80 degrees today, but yeah, it gets a little warm unless you want to just cruise with the windows down the whole time, which is not an issue for most days, but yeah, no air conditioning, a little bit of a con, but there are options to get air conditioning. So you just have to get the right truck really. So I didn't do that, but I enjoy it so far. So the second thing that I really enjoy is really just the sense of community when you're driving it. There's so many people that will come up and talk to you about it, wondering what it is, wondering if you'll sell it to them or not, which I'm not quite in the market yet for, but it is very fun to be talking to people about what the truck is, how you got it, how much you enjoy it, stuff like that. So if you are shy of talking to people, I definitely wouldn't recommend getting one, which is what a lot of people say. And it is true. There are quite a few people who will just come up and talk to you in the street, but similar-ish to if you have like a, I don't know, a fancy sports car. However, there'll definitely be a few different types of people that will come talk to you if you have a truck like this. So it's a blessing and a curse. Sometimes I just want to be by myself, but most of the time it's really fun to talk to new people about what the truck is and how I got it. So here's another con that I have a lot of the time. It's just getting up to speed is just not, it's not built for American roads, which is completely fair, but it definitely doesn't get up to speed very quickly. So if you're trying to go 60, you can get there, but it might take a little bit of time. So I did import it from Japan, and I want to preface all this by saying that I got it for pretty cheap. So if you're looking to get one, there is a lot of instant noodles to be had from buying one in the United States. It's already been registered and titled here and imported, obviously, but I liked the process and it was fun. I learned a lot and I think it was enjoyable in the long run and saved me some money to import it from the US. I'll probably try to make a video about that process I picked up in Jacksonville. So if you're in Florida or the Southeast, it should be a good guide for you. I'm gonna try to work on that and get that released soon-ish. So stay tuned for that. But other than that, it really was an enjoyable process and I can't say I don't recommend just importing it yourself. So yeah, I'm on a road with about a 45 mile an hour speed limit, and I'm going 80 kilometers an hour, allegedly. So it keeps up very well. It works, it does what it needs to do. So some people will say, hey, they're too slow. They don't keep up with American roads, but this is not my top speed and I'm passing vans and things on the side of the road. So I can't complain too much. So I'm here in a little bit more of a hilly area and this brings me to one of the biggest drawbacks that I found with this truck. And it's just its ability to go up hills. It's as simple as that. I did upgrade to 14 inch wheels from the stock 12. So that does probably impact its performance a little bit as far as the ability to move itself up hills. But other than that, it's okay. I do have to downshift quite a bit, even just going up a straight hill. But if you're in third or fourth, it's not too bad, but this is where your performance and your ability to back up the traffic definitely comes into play. Because I am foot to the floor going maybe 40, 50 kilometers an hour. And I, okay, I crushed to the hill and now I can get some speed. But the performance just drastically drops off from straight roads and flat roads where you can basically just gun it and pick up speed pretty quick to even just slight hills where I'd now just have to shift back down to fourth even though it wasn't a crazy hill. So that's one thing. It doesn't really apply to me. But if you're living in a very hilly area, you're really gonna have to think about how well your truck or your van can actually get up the hill down to third. So it's just something to keep an eye on and think about before you get one, especially if you're gonna daily it. That being said, the fun factor of this thing is just through the roof. So going through mountain roads like this, man, it is just fun. If you had a more powerful car, you wouldn't really be shifting much. But with this, it's almost like a motorcycle where you're gonna have to go all the way down for corners and you're gonna just have to huck it in there. But since it doesn't go crazy fast, you really don't have to worry too much about getting out of control or going too fast. Definitely not going too fast. So it really brings out the fun of twisty roads even though it's not a sports car. So that's definitely a hidden pro of hilly places with this truck. So I guess I should talk a little bit about the actual specs of this K truck in particular. So the Subaru, the sandbars, they have four cylinders, 660 CC around there. So right in, obviously a K truck, so it fits in the K specifications in Japan. But as far as the K trucks go, I've been really happy with the Subaru just because it has the five speed and the four cylinder engine. So you don't have to quite string it out as much as some of the other models because it just has a little more cylinders, spreads it out a little bit more, a little bit more smoother of a ride. So I've been very happy with my choice with the Subaru so far. So I'll touch on fuel economy a little bit. For the most part, I've averaged around 27 miles per gallon, which I mean, isn't amazing for what you'd think it would be maybe, but it's more than fine. It's only a 10 gallon tank. So I do still have to fuel up fairly often if I'm driving a lot. But 27 is not bad for an average city. I don't really do highway, obviously. So, I mean, could be worse for a city mile per gallon. So I guess I can't complain too much. But other than that, I mean, the bed is very useful and it definitely adds to the appeal of daily driving it for me. Obviously, if you really care about keeping things out of the elements, there is the bands, which I would love to have, but both variants are more than capable of carrying a lot of stuff, more than you might think when you look at it. All right, so we finally left the hilly area and we're more so downtown right now. So I'm gonna show you exactly where this thing kind of shines and it's just small, compact areas that you can just get anywhere in, like a downtown of a city. So as you can see, the streets are a little bit more narrower than out in the mountains, but I have so much space on either side that there's no way I'm ever gonna hit anything on accident. All right, so I found a little spot that I can try parallel parking in. It's literally just this easy. Boom, you can whip it in so hard and then it just comes, boom, just like that. It is very impressive with how short the wheelbase is. It is so nice. Really, the only drawback is the fact that you kind of have to look across the whole car when you're trying to pull out because of how you're sitting on the right side. So it's not that bad. It's such a skinny vehicle that you'd think it'd be more of an issue, but it really isn't. It's almost like driving in the middle of the lane like a motorcycle. So it's not bad. All right, so I'm a little warm after driving around, filming for a few hours, but for most things, for smaller trips, for daily commuting, it's more than capable and actually really fun. So I'm gonna pull over and we'll recap a little bit about what we found out. As far as a recap of what it does well, it's fun. It does what it needs to do. It goes where it needs to go. It draws a crowd to an extent, depending on if that's a good thing or not for you. And yeah, it's small, it's convenient. It's good in the city. It's good out in the country. So, I mean, it's not bad. To recap the negatives, I mean, it's not super fast. It's also not super comfortable. The suspension is really stiff, but I mean, I think you'd know that going into it or you should at least, and it all kind of makes it into one big, charming, well, big, small, charming package that is really irresistible for anybody who really wants a challenge and something fun to go around and work on around the weekend. So give it a try. I mean, that's my final bit of advice is like, just do it if you really want to. That's what I did. And then if you import it, it's not that expensive. So that's really all I got. Yes, it's a good daily driver. It can work. Give it a try. This is Jonathan Windle for The Windle, and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.