The Kurogane Baby was a ''

keitora A kei truck, kei-class truck, or Japanese mini truck is a mini truck, a tiny but practical pickup truck available in rear-wheel drive or four-wheel drive versions, built to satisfy the Japanese '' keijidōsha'' (軽自動車, "light vehicle") s ...

'' and

microvan A microvan is a van or minivan which is within the Japanese kei car classification or similar, and is smaller than a mini MPV. In China, these vehicles are nicknamed ''mian bao che'' ("bread-loaf vehicle") because of their shape.

built by the

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

ese Kurogane company from April 1959 until January 1961, sold only in

. It was developed by a company of which Kurogane had assumed operations, called Ohta Jidosha, but was introduced under the Kurogane brand and was only available until 1962. It had a 356-cc, water-cooled, overhead-valve, two-cylinder engine installed in the back of the vehicle, with rear-wheel drive. The more competitively priced Subaru Sambar and the Suzuki Carry proved to be more popular and the Baby was discontinued after less than two years. It was available in two bodystyles, a

van A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and bigger than a common car. There is some varying in the scope of the word across th ...

and a pickup.

References

{{van-stub Microvans Pickup trucks Cab over vehicles Kei trucks Rear-engined vehicles Rear-wheel-drive vehicles Vehicles introduced in 1959