The Toyota MiniAce was a small utility vehicle built by

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

from November 1967 until November 1975. It shared many parts with the

Toyota Publica The is a small car manufactured by the Japanese automaker Toyota from 1961 until 1978. Conceived as a family car to fulfill the requirements of the Japanese Government's "national car concept", it was the smallest Toyota car during that period an ...

, especially the Publica P20 Pickup. In Japan, it was sold through the ''

Toyota Corolla Store Toyota vehicles in Japan are distributed to numerous dealership chains throughout the country. Up to May 2020, each dealership chain had a different product offering, with some models restricted to one chain to maintain exclusivity. Since May 2020, ...

'' and ''Toyota Auto Store'' networks. Because it shares many parts with the popular Toyota Publica and the highly collectable

Toyota Sports 800 The is Toyota's first production sports car. The prototype for the Sports 800, called the Publica Sports, debuted at the 1962 Tokyo Auto Show, featuring a space age sliding canopy and utilizing the powertrain of the Publica 700, a Japanese mark ...

most MiniAces have been used for parts and very few survive. Its exterior dimensions and engine displacement, while very small, do not conform to "

kei car Kei car (or , kanji: , "light automobile", ), known variously outside Japan as Japanese city car or Japanese microcar, is the Japanese vehicle category for the smallest highway-legal passenger cars with restricted dimensions and engine capacit ...

" Japanese government regulations.

History

The concept origina he particularly small turning circle of only . It entered the market in November 1967, as a truck or as a panel van. Priced low, in consideration of its payload, the MiniAce sold well, especially due to its compliance to the Japanese annual

road tax Road tax, known by various names around the world, is a tax which has to be paid on, or included with, a motorised vehicle to use it on a public road. National implementations Australia All states and territories require an annual vehicle registra ...

obligation. True success followed once the MiniAce Van (UP100V) and MiniAce Coach, a seven-seater minibus, were added in August 1968. Soon, though, more modern challengers like Mitsubishi's Delica began whittling away at the market share of the MiniAce. Its toughest competitor, the 1969 Datsun Sunny Cab received a water-cooled 1.2 liter engine for 1972. The MiniAce's 2U-B engine offered only at 4,600 rpm, which was enough for a claimed top speed of . Nonetheless, Toyota's 1967 engagement with

Daihatsu , commonly known as Daihatsu, is a Japanese automobile manufacturer and one of the oldest surviving Japanese internal combustion engine manufacturers. The company's headquarters are located in Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture. Historically, Daihatsu was ...

meant that Toyota was to relinquish this portion of the market, and no more serious investments in the MiniAce were made. After December 1969, manufacture was transferred from Toyota's Takaoka plant and was now shared between Hino, Daihatsu, and the Fuji Auto Body Co., Ltd. which made the bodies. In the early seventies the MiniAce received a very light facelift, mainly consisting of a plastic shield with a "Toyota" script located just beneath the front windshield. As the air-cooled U engine would have a hard time passing new, stricter emissions standards for 1976, production was halted in November 1975. Although the MiniAce had become too small and spartan for the now more sophisticated Japanese consumers, it was still a strong seller in other Asian markets. The larger LiteAce and all new TownAce took over, with Daihatsu's Hijet covering the lower end of the segment. In December 2011, Toyota returned to this market segment with the introduction of the Toyota Pixis Van and Truck, rebadged

Daihatsu Hijet The is a cab over microvan and kei truck produced and sold by the Japanese automaker Daihatsu since 1960. Despite the similarities between the Hijet name and Toyota's naming scheme for its trucks and vans (HiAce and Hilux), the name "Hijet" ha ...

References

{{Toyota road cars timeline, 1955-1984 MiniAce 1960s cars 1970s cars Rear-wheel-drive vehicles Vehicles introduced in 1967 Cars powered by boxer engines Minibuses Microvans Cab over vehicles Cars powered by 2-cylinder engines