Down On The Street - Hamburg Edition

I spotted this rare Japanese-market "kei" car outside my hotel last week.

It's a diminutive Honda Beat. A mid-engine and rear wheel drive roadster, the Beat only saw a six year production run in the early 90s. This is the first one I've ever seen in the metal.

Powered by a 3 cylinder engine displacing all of 656 ccs. However, with Honda's engine ingenuity, they were able to muster 63HP out of this diminutive mill. Sure, that doesn't sound like much, but it's near the 100 bhp per liter mark that has long been considered an engineering achievement. To put it in perspective, my first car, a Subaru Shitbox Justy wheezed 66 HP out of 1189 ccs. And my Justy had nowhere near the 8100 RPM redline that the Beat has.

This thing is tiny, it's dwarfed by the adjacent Mini Cooper. And just in case you needed a reminder of the model, just look at the rear fill plate.

Two days later I spied a second Beat in the same neighborhood, without the BEAT logo across the rear.

Midship amusement indeed.

Down on the Street - Taipei Edition

When I spent seven hours wandering the streets of Taipei, I came across this oddity.
Don't let the badges fool you, the only VW-related part on this tiny transporter is the VW emblem up front.
Really nothing more than a Japanese Kei-class van that's undergone a nose-job and a re-spray to emulate the look of the first-generation of VW vans (aka the T1 Transporter).
One nice detail are the bumper overriders. Too bad the taillights are completely modern in style.

My friend Keith thinks that it may be a Subaru Sambar (edited 3/22):
The interior was also customized with, er, questionable taste:
Holy Red Sea! Check out the acrylic steering wheel:
But whatever, if it makes the owner happy, I'm cool with that. It certainly stands out in Taiwan's sea of bland cars.