Why Japanese Kei Trucks Are the Ultimate Vintage Workhorses

If you have lived in Japan, seeing tiny toy-like trucks drive up and down narrow streets, carrying various goods and supplies is not an unusual sight. However, for Westerners, and especially Americans, who are so used to needlessly oversized vehicles, these minute trucks can appear incredibly bizarre.

So, let’s examine Japanese kei trucks, explore their characteristics and history, and try to determine what makes them the ultimate vintage workhorses for small businesses and whether they have a place in the Western world.

What Are Japanese Kei Trucks Exactly?

Kei trucks or “kei-tora” trucks (meaning “light truck” in Japanese) are minuscule vehicles with 660 cc four-stroke engines (or smaller) intentionally designed to be as small, compact, maneuverable, and efficient as possible. They are meant for the small and narrow streets of dense urban areas and typically have a bed load of up to 350 kg (770 lbs).

This load capacity is obviously two or more times lower than that of the larger American and European trucks people in the West have grown accustomed to using, but it is typically enough for most small business or personal needs. Plus, as we’ll see below, the benefits of the kei trucks’ smaller size and lower capacity are numerous and quite attractive.

Brief History Of Japanese Kei Trucks And Why Have They Become So Popular Today?

Kei trucks have been in wide use in Japan ever since the end of World War II. Back then, the recovering Japanese economy needed small and efficient vehicles to help small businesses operate without overspending. Crucially, the Japanese government had also implemented size-based vehicle taxation regulations that offered much better tax benefits for people with smaller and more efficient vehicles.

Thus, kei cars and kei trucks were born. The latter, in particular, proved exceptional both for navigating narrow urban streets and for transporting timber, livestock food, and other supplies in rural areas.

Yet, although kei trucks have been popular in Japan for over seven decades, they have only recently started entering Western markets. Sales of kei trucks have tripled in the last five years in the US, and over 7,500 vehicles were imported in 2023.

We’ll explore the particular benefits of kei trucks in detail below, but the main reason they have started making their way into Western markets right now (and not earlier) seems to be the incredibly low prices and following expenses of these trucks compared to their Western alternatives.

Or, as George Zotos, the owner of Oiwa Garage puts it on CNN, “People want the functionality of a truck, but they don’t want the size of it or to spend $60,000 on it.”

Benefits Of Japanese Kei Trucks

1. Great Maneuverability

Size matters and on the narrow and overcrowded streets of urban centers, smaller and lighter vehicles offer amazing maneuverability and versatility. The tight turning radius of such a small vehicle alone allows it to do things a larger American truck is simply incapable of.

2. Endless Versatility

Kei trucks aren’t merely meant to fit into places larger vehicles can’t. These tiny trucks can be used for all sorts of tasks, including transporting hundreds of pounds of goods in rural areas, for off-road adventures, for agricultural tasks, and for many personal and recreational purposes. As long as the things you need to carry are within their 770 lbs load capacity, kei trucks can do the job.

3. Incredibly Low Prices And Fuel Efficiency

A new Western truck nowadays tends to cost around or above $60,000. A kei truck can cost more than ten times less with prices usually staying within the low 4-digit range or sometimes even below $1,000. This, coupled with the very low maintenance costs of kei trucks (parts tend to be cheap and easy to acquire) makes them the ultimate budget vehicle for cash-strapped Westerners.

A fuel consumption of just 30 to 40 miles per gallon is also a great advantage.

4. Value Retention And High Resale Prices

Value retention is also a major factor when buying a new vehicle. With their low prices, you’d think kei trucks don’t have great value retention, but the opposite is true. These tiny trucks are so easy to maintain in peak condition that they can be resold for near their initial price years and even decades later.