There's no accounting for the psychology of the car-buying public, especially in Japan.
When Toyota announced it would sell the Daihatsu Terios, rebadged as the Toyota Cami, the car-making giant planned on sales of 1,500 a month, an optimistic figure given that Daihatsu has average sales of 240 a month.
But since the little 1.3-litre four-wheel drive was released as a Toyota on May 17, orders have flooded in. More than 4,600 of them, reports Kyodo newsagency.
Of course, Daihatsu is affiliated with Toyota, so the badge-engineering is not unusual. What is stunning observers, however, is the degree of partisanship the Toyota brand name can attract.
Why should a model be 16 times more attractive to the buying public when it is marketed under a different name?
The answer, of course, is that few people are aware the popular Toyota Cami is exactly the same vehicle as the ugly duckling Daihatsu Terios.
Toyota has also been selling another model produced by Daihatsu, the Storia, under the brandname Duet since last September.
And average monthly sales of Toyota's Duet outsell those of Daihatsu's Storia by 2,980 to 550.