From the Junk Pile

Look around you on the streets and highways; how many Japanese cars can you see? On any road, even with a moderate amount of junk traffic you can probably figure about forty percent of the cars you see will come from a Japanese automaker of some form. All the Toyotas, Nissans, Hondas, Mazdas, Mitsubishis and others fill our streets and we seem to love driving them. Most of these brands have built a reputation for greatness from the fact their vehicles are extremely reliable and get great fuel mileage, but would you expect these name to be responsible for one of the worst cars to ever be imported to England?

Strange as it may seem, the first Japanese car that was imported to England did not come from one of the aforementioned names, but came from another that we no longer see in America, Daihatsu. This brand brought to the UK the Compagno in May of 1965 and there is no doubt the British people would have rather this car simple was never unloaded off the boat it arrived on. The Compagno was classified as something most of us would never want our car to be; a piece of junk.

The Compagno was only the second four-wheel vehicle that Daihatsu had ever made and was available in sedan, coupe and wagon forms with a style that came from Vignale. At the time this was the oldest car company in Japan and one that had a stellar reputation for the sports cars they created and motorcycles that littered the streets of the world, but this little car did not create any type of success in England. The 800 offered a standard heater, reclining seats, tinted windows, a clock, cigarette lighter and a radio that had an automatic antenna but somehow this car did not hit the market running.

The import company that introduced the Compagno to England was Dufay which sold Japanese cameras so the idea of selling Japanese cars was an easy fit for the company. Whether it was the fact Daihatsu put their car in the hands of a camera sales company, or that they simply did not send the best models they could, this car was around from 1965 until 1970 in England and by the end of the production run there had only been six of these models sold in the automotive market in England.

Daihatsu had built 120,000 of these cars over the six year period it was in production. Selling only six in a market was a huge blow and inventory became stagnant from the complete standstill this car seemed to experience. The other problem with trying to sell this particular car in Great Britain is the fact I was one of the worst cars ever made. While it may have fit the bill in size and fuel mileage, Japan should have come with something stronger when you have a market that has continually produced some of the best cars in the world, even the average shopper didn’t want the Compagno.

What was wrong with this car? It offered a bouncy ride and a terrible grip of the road. The brakes were touchy and it had too much oversteer. These words were shared in kind during reviews of the car that the time and other deficiencies presented themselves as well such as lout turn signals and a time to reach sixty mph that was too slow to be timed by much more than a sundial. If this wasn’t enough to turn most buyers away, which this car obviously did, the price was higher than the Hillman Imp and Ford Anglia of the time which were both popular at the time.

If this car was so awful, why do we care about it? The reason we care is because it was the first. There are still three that remain in the UK that are carefully cared for as part of a collection and some of these models have been found in Finland and Australia. This car broke the ground needed to be broken to ensure Japan could gain a foothold in the British automotive market which opened the door to the Corona from Toyota and the Datsun 1000 which were real Japanese cars the British could love and adore. Amazingly, you can still by this car from the source and enjoy having a Compagno of the 1960s to show off an interesting piece of really awful automotive history.