Today, we are here with the owner's review of Daihatsu Charade. The car was launched with both petrol and diesel engines. There were two variants in Diesel, i.e. Turbo and Non-Turbo. The under review car is a Non-Turbo Diesel variant. As per the owner, he likes this Non-Turbo variant because it is easy to maintain at a low cost. Engine:  The car has a 1000cc Non-Turbo diesel engine. The owner told us that the diesel engine has mostly mechanical components, making it affordable and easily maintainable. "You just have to keep your battery healthy and adjust the fuel pump properly," the owner said, adding your car will keep on running smoothly. Comparatively, the petrol engine has a lot of mechanical as well as electric parts, making it costly to keep healthy. Purchase Decision and Price:  The owner told us that Charade in the running condition will cost you under Rs2-lacs, making it most affordable against its competitors. "The major reason behind this purchase is its diesel engine because it is very easy to maintain than a petrol engine," he said. Is It Reliable?  As it is an old car with a vintage design, the question arises, is it reliable? Because mostly the students or people with low budget will buy it. Answering the query, the owner said this is a very reliable car. "I have even travelled on it out of the city regularly, including mountains, and it never creates any issue," he said. Fuel Average:  The owner said its intracity fuel average is around 15km/liter, while it gives 23km/liter on the long route, which indeed is great. Maintenance:  As mentioned earlier, the maintenance of this car is quite easy and affordable. "Once a petrol pump attendant filled it with petrol instead of diesel. Still, this car drove for 50-kilometre, and we resolved the issue by simply draining the whole tank, clean it and refill it with Mobil Oil mixed diesel, and the car was good to go," owner told us. Body Parts:  The spare parts of this body are relatively costlier than the Charade models that came after this one. "You can buy its four doors from Karachi or Peshawar in Rs20,000," he shared. Seating Space:  The car has ample space on both front and rear seats, along with a pretty good headspace. This car is spacious than Suzuki Mehran and Suzuki FX. Watch Video: 

In 1977, Daihatsu came up with a successor of Consorte and called it the Daihatsu Charade. According to Daihatsu, Charade was a relatively bigger car in their compact cars line-up, bigger than other vehicles such as Daihatsu Mira. The vehicle was produced in China by FAW with a name tag of Xiali. Charade was the most popular car Daihatsu ever produced. The first generation, also known as the G10 was seen on the roads from 1977 to 1983, after which a second generation was introduced. The vehicle was a front wheel drive with a 1.0 liter three-cylinder engine. The G10 was divided into two series; Series 1 had round headlights whereas the Series 2 had square headlights. Series two was introduced in 1981 with similar engine as that on the Series 1.   The second generation, also known as the G11 had its production started from 1983 which continued till 1987. The buyer at that time had many options such as buying the vehicle with five doors or three doors. Also, at the times of selecting power of the vehicle there were many variants such as turbo petrol, turbo diesel, petrol and diesel with an option to select automatic or manual transmission. The base model Daihatsu Charade with a 1000cc three-cylinder engine had a 0-100 kmph of 12-13seconds. This vehicle was popularly seen on roads of Pakistan. Back into the 80’s the car was popular for its road grip, acceleration and strong body. The turbo variants were also seen on the roads of Pakistan but not as much as the standard ones. The G11 Charade was also produced in two different series, one with square headlights and the other with cat's eye-shaped headlights. The Charade is still seen on the roads of Pakistan because of its ability to handle almost any type of alteration and I have seen people putting all sorts of engine into the car and the car takes all sorts of abuse easily. I know a person who has this Charade in lime green color; the vehicle has almost lost its original paint though. I swear if you see the condition of the vehicle you won’t believe that he drives it daily. I fear that one day the tires will come off themselves and say please forgive us we haven’t done bad to you. The vehicle has its engine changed, but it refuses to die on him. The Third Generation (G100) Charade had its production started in 1987 and stopped in the year 1993. The vehicle is most commonly known as the Anda Charade (Egg Charade) or Anda Shape Charade (Egg Shape Charade) in the Pakistani market due to its oval body shape. The G100 Charade had three major body variants, a three doors hatchback, a five doors hatchback and a four doors sedan. The sedan never became very popular in Pakistan and you would rarely see one on roads here. The vehicle was available in four speeds, five-speed manual transmissions and also three speed automatic transmissions. The one imported to Pakistani market were majorly manual ones. There were two Grand Tourer (GT) variants also available with the names GTxx and GTti which had sports add-ons such as body kit, 14” inch Speedline alloys, power steering, one touch electric window, electric sunroof and air conditioning, exhaust and 4-wheel disk brakes. The G100 or Anda Charade was initially used as a family car back in the days but after some time all the racer boys started purchasing the vehicle for its low price, modification capabilities, and performance potential. It is said that a properly modified Charade can easily outrun an RX8 in a quarter mile and a half mile race. Due to the huge area under the hood, different types of engines can be and are installed in the vehicle. A guy purchased a dead Charade from Quetta for couple of thousands. Got it delivered to Karachi and spent weeks just gathering things for the car. He put in a twin-turbo engine in it from Shershah (the junk yard auto parts market of Karachi). After months of restoration and all the efforts, the car still cost him less than Rs. 500,ooo. A day back, I was at local tea joint and saw this blue Charade fully modified with bronze rims on it. It was looking beautiful. Although I’m not a a big fan of Charade, but this car made me fell in love with it and I decided to write an article on Daihatsu Charade in Pakistan.

Almost everyone buys the Anda charade for their B16 or 4EFTE endeavors and square eyed Daihatsu Charade and its later facelift model remains in vain with little or no gratitude of how much a beast of a car it was. Folks down here have gone wild with the Anda Charade so much that it has raised Anda’s price a little bit owing to the swaps guys do to make it a pocket rocket for the straight lines. But Daihatsu was crazy and passionate too but they weren’t aiming for straight lines, they wanted fast cornering abilities for the terrain which gave birth to the famous quote, ‘Motorsports is dangerous’, the Group B rally. After acquiring Innocenti from Leyland, DeTomaso continued the production of Innocenti’s hot hatch; Innocenti Mini which became known as Innocenti DeTomaso which was updated with bigger engine and plastic bumpers. In 1982 DeTomaso started to look around for a new engine supplier due to the supply crisis with Leyland and eventually swapped its Mini engine and chassis with G11 Daihatsu Charade chassis and engine which included the CB60 SOHC 3 Cyl. turbo engine. Together by combing Japanese engineering with Italian hot hatch style gave Innocenti Turbo DeTomaso. That’s how Daihatsu began dating with the Italian hot hatch, but Daihatsu wanted more. Just an year later, Daihatsu brought out its original Charade turbo but with improved interior and exterior to match with the Innocenti De Tomaso Turbo. At that time in Japan, there was high demand for foreign things. The Actual Daihatsu 926 Turbo wasn’t called as a De Tomaso Turbo but it was the 1984 Daihatsu Charade DeTomaso 926 Turbo which was honored with having the DeTomaso tag with it which was to become what AMG is for Mercedes and M is to BMW. The DeTomaso 926 Turbo was prepared as the homologation model for the group B rally with a slightly smaller engine with decreased capacity from 993cc to 926cc to fit in the sub 13000cc group B regulations. Only 200 of these were produced. Only a year later in 1985, Daihatsu showcased a homologation special at the Tokyo Auto show which attracted the crowd to its booth like fire is attracted to gas or anything. To even this day it does not age to me, provided I find one, I will buy one instantly. It was the Charade DeTomaso 926R with a mid-engine layout powering the rear wheels; wide body kit was installed through out with air-ducts to provide air to engine sitting behind the driver seat. Power output was improved over its precursors with the help of ECU tuning and boost increase taking it from 85HP to 120HP, even that was pretty much enough for the 800KG hatch back. Its engine, CB70 was mated with a manual 5-Speed transmission which drove the rear wheels through a mechanical limited slip differential. Double wishbone suspension at all four corners with coil over type spring and damper set up gave the 926R handling to match its rivals. The CB70 Turbo engine was all the same engine which came in the 1987 Charade(Chassis name: G100). It was the regarded as Daihatsu’s very own supercar and journalist started to drew similarities between the Renault 5 but 926R’s fate remained unknown to Daihatsu as it moved toward selling it via various media presentations and test drive which all came out positive, great expectations were with the 926R owing to how much successful its predecessor was in WRC but it all went in vain when FIA decided to ban group B rally later the year after the fatalities that struck in early 1986, hence the 926R’s production run was cancelled and It could never see the show room. There were a lot of 926 turbo’s and the 926 DeTomaso Turbos imported into Pakistan, but today, in Pakistan, sadly Anda Charade has the better image when it comes to sports or say straight line racing. Had they known what gave the Charade the hype it has today, I am quite sure few madmen would’ve performed the ultimate conversion down here; converting the 926 DeTomaso Turbo into a 926R, the addition or deletion of the single letter R is the biggest difference you’d ever see.