Subaru dealer Motor Image will launch the R2 mini passenger car 'for about $100,000' in April, says spokeswoman Martha Leung. Launched in Japan in December 2003, the 658cc, four-cylinder, four-seater runabout 'meets potential market needs by pursuing new values of the minicar', the dealer says.
The R2 (below) looks good and is said to do 24km per litre in Japan. We can't wait to test it in the Hong Kong fug, where smaller, more fuel-efficient cars make more sense. After all, the Automotive Researchers' & Journalists' Conference of Japan last year voted the R2 best mini passenger car. The Smart Forfour, podgy Toyota Yaris and the fun Suzuki Swift face new competition, but they'll rest easier than the sports utility vehicles and three-litre saloons that crawl just as slowly, but more expensively, in Hong Kong traffic.
We hear of yet another China drive - this time for the Euro-brash. The French-run Imperial Rally for 20 classic cars is scheduled to tour 2,500km of southern China, leaving the InterContinental Hong Kong in Kowloon at 8.30am on March 22, and returning on March 31, via Guangzhou, Guilin, Liuzhou, Zhaoqing and Shenzhen.
Participants will celebrate the start of their drive with 'important French and Chinese people living in Hong Kong' at a French consulate-organised dinner, says spokeswoman Sophie Kliszowski-de Fety. 'The Hong Kong classic car clubs will be invited as well,' she says. After all, the Collectors' Club has just returned from a fine show in Kunming (above).
European participants are mostly French. 'We're expecting the registration of two Hong Kong teams,' Kliszowski-de Fety says.
