Francesca Knowles wrote:
The Japanese government is actually putting pressure on its domestic carmakers to phase out kei-type cars. Seems the Powers that Be think more Japanese should be buying bigger cars! See this report.
It was that article that led me to googling pictures of kei-cars and in the mix was the cute little RVs. As I recall from the article, the reason that the government wants to phase them out is not that they merely want the Japanese to buy bigger cars, but that they are not exportable... and thus add little to the local economy. Japan must export to make money.
I don't think these would pass the safety tests here... but I could be wrong.