Great vehicle I agree...but always seemed a little too narrow for my liking...as was the Mazda Bongo.
That is as they are supposed to be. I have not looked into this to confirm the specifics, but i'm fairly sure the car taxation system in Japan works by width. From looking into the dimensions of various Japanese cars, there seem to be 3 width points. Up to 1.5m (Kei car), up to 1.7m and around 1.8m. The last of those covers the largest domestic market MPV's, like the Toyota Alphard, Nissan Elgrand, etc. The middle figure covers the Mazda Bongo (and Ford Frieda), Honda Stepwagon, Toyota Noah etc. But it also covers oddities like the Toyota Regius which is essentially the Hiace with around 9cm sliced out of the width giving proportions even odder than the others (with it being so tall). Those with a good memory and of a nerdy dispostion may recall that the 2nd gen Mitsubishi Shogun/Pajero was available in two 'widths' (neither of which affected the cabin space), the bulk of the UK market cars having wider arches to give it a bit more visual muscle, but without those fatter arches, it was less than 1.7m wide.
This is why a Japanese import MPV appeals to me, because it fills a gap pretty much completely vacated by European marques, that is for folk who need or want more than 5 seats but, for whatever reason, also need a narrow car (in my case, this is due to living on a narrow street with parking both sides). Because of how narrow some of these cars are, especially the ones under 1.7m wide, a pinch of salt is needed to accept descriptions of '8 seater', as three abreast on each rear bench is going to be pretty cosy!. But if you think of them as being '6 + 2 seaters', that makes much more sense, and those extra 2 seats will be handy to have even if you wouldn't want to do a long journey 8 up.
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