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Daihatsu Sirion Review

December 2004
Filed under: DAIHATSU Car News | DAIHATSU Headlines
Daihatsu Motor Co., Ltd., today introduced a full model change for its flagship compact model, the Sirion, in Europe. Featuring a newly developed 1-litre or 1.3-litre engine, a completely revamped styling and extremely efficient packaging, the new Sirion adds up to a major advance on its predecessor.

The B-segment compact car market has been attracting significant attention in recent years. In Europe in particular, there have been continuing introductions of new models from our competitors in this segment. The new Sirion is our answer to the ever changing and evolving compact-car market. Taken from the name of a broad river appearing in the story, The Lord of the Rings, the Sirion is an incarnation of Daihatsu’s enthusiasm to create a vehicle representative of an entire new stream of compact cars.

The new Sirion’s concept is a “Multiple Purpose Compact”. A perfect everyday car for young families and small families of all ages, the new Sirion is easy to use, a joy to operate and environmentally friendly to drive thanks to its innovative design and engineering.

In a complete departure from the old model, the new Sirion’s styling combines sharp edges with solid planes. A short and wide body with wheels arranged at the four corners gives the car an advanced sense of stability, while the figure composed of powerful lines provides a sense of presence that makes the Sirion stand out from the crowd.

The new Sirion’s compact body packs an amazingly broad interior space that defies the imagination. Featuring a versatile seating arrangement along with ample storage capacity, the Sirion makes the time spent inside the cabin a wonderful and comfortable experience filled with convenience.

Powered by the newly developed 1-litre 1KR-FE engine or 1.3-litre K3-VE engine, the new Sirion is one of the cleanest and most fuel-efficient petrol engine cars on the planet.

Equipped with a slew of advanced safety technology, the new Sirion sets a new standard in both active and passive safety for vehicles of this class.

FEATURES


1. A styling like no other


The new Sirion’s exterior features sharp edges and simple yet expressive planes. Neither boringly businesslike nor impractically stylish, the new Sirion’s innovative exterior design represents Daihatsu’s latest idea for a new generation compact car. With short overhangs and wide tracks for both front and rear, the new Sirion simultaneously conveys a sense of stability and agility. Moreover, the dynamic and powerful form has a sense of presence that makes one think of a much larger car.
A sporty package with an even more aggressive and sportier exterior is also available.

2. A comfortable and space-filled interior


The theme of the new Sirion’s interior design is “Simple and Clean”. Contoured with animated lines and planes, the new Sirion’s simple and clean interior design surrounds the occupants with a high quality and comfortable atmosphere. Despite its compact size, the new Sirion has an amazingly broad interior space thanks to its long wheelbase and wide track design. The new Sirion’s interior also features numerous new ideas. Sit yourself in the driver’s seat, and you will notice that the new Sirion has redefined the instrument panel. The speedometer—the most important instrument in a passenger car—is not on the instrument panel, but is mounted on the steering column. It moves together with the tilt of the steering column, ensuring unobstructed speedometer reading regardless of the steering wheel position. Thanks to the combination of the tilt steering, seat height adjuster, shoulder anchor adjuster and a large seat slide, the driver, regardless of their stature, is assured of the best and most comfortable driving position.

3. Ample storage space and utility


Designed as a perfect everyday transportation tool, the Sirion offers versatile seating arrangements together with interior space efficiency.

The rear seat back can be folded in a 6 to 4 split to allow more flexible use of the rear-seat space. Moreover, the rear seat back can be folded down forward without removing the head restraints, creating a huge luggage compartment of 630 litres under the VDA measurement.
Both the front and rear-seat occupants are provided with comfortable seating and ample storage space including a glove compartment that's split into upper and lower sections, a long utility rack underneath the dashboard, and a tray in the lower part of the centre console, all of which are designed to store the usual carry-on items in style.

4. Engine that deliver stress-free driving performance, cleaner exhaust emissions and excellent fuel efficiency.

The new Sirion is available in two engine variations: a newly developed 1-litre engine that achieves excellent fuel efficiency and a compact 1.3-litre engine delivering an excellent overall balance.

The 1-litre, in-line three-cylinder DOHC engine (Type 1KR-FE) employs continuously variable valve timing and optimised intake ports, generating rich torque in the low- to medium-rpm range. Developing a maximum output of 51 kW at 6000 rpm and a maximum torque of 94 Nm at 3600 rpm, the 1KR-FE delivers excellent acceleration under town use conditions involving frequent stops and starts. Featuring compact combustion chambers and an offset crankshaft, this engine employs resin-coated pistons and low-tension piston rings to reduce friction inside the engine. The highly rigid aluminium block and an oil pan that's also made of aluminium contribute to low vibration and quietness while substantially reducing weight, making the 1KR-FE an extremely fuel efficient and clean engine that achieves excellent fuel consumption of 5.0 litres per 100 km. The 1KR-FE also realises a low emission level of just 118 g/km.

The 1.3-litre, in-line four-cylinder DOHC engine (Type K3-VE) employs the world's first self-regenerating Intelligent Catalyst, reconciling high performance and clean emissions. The K3-VE also employs continuously variable valve timing to achieve sufficient torque in the low- to medium-rpm range and smooth acceleration in the high-rpm range. This engine, which has been highly praised for its revolutionary compact design, high performance and low fuel consumption, has been further refined with the employment of a mount-stay-integrated chain cover and by fine tuning the ignition and fuel control specifications to make it a perfect match for the new Sirion. Both the 1KR-FE and K3-VE engines comply with the EURO IV exhaust emission standards.

5. The world's first—Intelligent Catalyst (only for the K3-VE engine)


Daihatsu's Intelligent Catalyst is a revolutionary technology that maintains a stable catalytic performance over a much longer time by engineering a self-regenerative capability into particles of a precious metal that are otherwise prone to degradation.

Most modern automobiles use precious metals such as palladium, platinum and rhodium in their catalytic converters. Using nanotechnology, the Intelligent Catalyst incorporates metallic ions of palladium, the most heat-sensitive of these metals, into perovskite-crystals having an ABO3-type structure. In a high temperature reductive atmosphere, where insufficient oxygen is available, palladium metallic ions come out of the perovskite-crystals and become active metallic particles. In an oxidative atmosphere, where there is an excess of oxygen, they enter into the crystals again where they are regenerated. By repeating this process, the Intelligent Catalyst can maintain its excellent cleaning capability over a much longer period of time.

6. Suspension


The front independent suspension with MacPherson struts and coil springs and the rear semi-independent suspension with a torsion beam axle and coil springs have been purpose-tuned for the new Sirion through hundreds of hours of test driving over thousands of kilometres of European roads in order to carry the occupants in comfort and with excellent stability.

7. Body


Suspension mounts are reinforced and high-tension steel sheets are used unsparingly to optimise the overall body performance. The result is a lightweight and highly rigid body offering excellent crash safety, NVH characteristics and stability under all driving conditions together with long-term durability thanks also to the appropriate application of wax and an undercoating to all areas that are prone to rust.

8. Environment


Only materials that are recyclable or that cause relatively small environmental strain are used along with recycled parts. All major parts are designed to be easy to dismantle. And to further aid recycling, all rubber parts weighing 100 grams or more and all other parts are provided with markings in accordance with the European Commission’s Decision 2003/138/EC of 27 February 2003.

9. Safety


The new Sirion has been subjected to the world’s most rigorous crash tests at Daihatsu's own testing facility, including full-on frontal and side-impact collision tests at 55 km/h, a rear-impact test at 50 km/h and a frontal offset collision test at 64 km/h, and has cleared all of Daihatsu's original goals in terms of maintaining sufficient occupant survival space and reducing the level of injuries sustained by dummies in all of these tests. In Daihatsu’s original crash tests involving much larger cars, the new Sirion's occupant survival space was among the largest of any car in its class. The new Sirion also uses shock-absorbing materials for the bonnet, cowl and bumpers to lessen the severity of shocks to the head and chest of pedestrians who may be hit by the car in the event of an accident, thereby reducing the degree of injuries in such cases. In addition to such safety features as ABS (anti-skid braking system) with EBD (electronic brake distribution), frontal and side SRS (supplemental restraint system) airbags for the front-seat occupants and optional curtain shield airbags, the new Sirion is equipped with a child seat restraint anchorage

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