AUTOMOTIVE : Daihatsu Could Make Mark on U.S. Buyers With Concept Car

Daihatsu Motor Co. makes a lot of nice little cars, but its products for the U.S. market--the Rocky sports utility vehicle and the Charade subcompact--haven’t lighted fires in consumers.

That could change, however, if the Japanese auto maker follows through with a new concept car unveiled at the 1991 International Motor Show in Frankfurt, Germany, last month.

The Daihatsu X-021 is a 2-seat roadster whose concept owes much to Mazda’s Miata and a whole generation of post-World War II European sports cars.

As befitting a small car specialist, Daihatsu’s concept sportster is small and light, providing speed and fuel economy. Its curb weight is a mere 1,543 pounds, thanks to a curvaceous body of reinforced plastic wrapped around an aluminum frame. An aluminum 1.6-liter, 16-valve engine pumps out 138 horsepower to speed things along, while disc brakes on all four wheels help slow it down.

Safety features include a driver’s air bag, impact beams in both doors and roll bars behind both the driver and passenger seats.

Many concept cars, of course, never make it to market. But if Daihatsu wants to make a bigger impression on the U.S. market than it has so far, a few boatloads of a reasonably priced production version of the X-021 might do the trick.

Just look at what the Miata did for Mazda three years ago.