(upbeat music)
- It's like fan service.
It's like, when you finally catch an Easter egg
in a Marvel movie.
It's just satisfying.
There's something about it
that just makes you smile, all right?
And there are cars out there that you will likely never own.
Like ever.
- There's a giant Suzuki coming and its moving fast.
(ominous music)
- Cars that you just can't see yourself in,
no matter what point in life that you're at.
But you're still curious about one
when they do pop up at a cars and coffee,
you think to yourself,
"There's no way like, that'd work for me."
And you'd be kind of right,
the car probably just wouldn't be good for you
'cause you know you, right?
But these cars deserve some more appreciation
and respeck, all right.
Put some respeck on the name, all right.
They were the foundation of an entire generation
of K-E-I cars, all right.
I'm Alex, AlEX.FI on Instagram.
And today were gonna be talking about a KEI car
that most know of, but I have no idea what it looks like.
A car that literally has .6 liters of fury
and weighs 1,600 pounds.
A car that was made by a company that specialized
in weird, funky things
that kids in today's day and age have absolutely no idea
and even us to this day and age,
really don't know what Suzuki is honestly up to.
A car that looks a bit like a combination
between a Miata, a Mark II, and a Lexus,
depending on where you smooshed it.
Ladies and gentlemen, because one person asks
in the comments for 72 days in a row,
we're gonna to be talking
about you wanting to own a Suzuki Cappuccino.
- Men,
we're under attack by a giant vehicle,
by the name of Suzuki.
(tires screeching) (upbeat music)
- And if you're just jumping into one of these videos,
I'm running out of patterns to do.
Hi.
Don't forget to subscribe
so we can keep making banging videos like this.
And if you're looking for aftermarket wheels,
tires, or suspension, be sure to hit us up over
at fitmentindustries.com where we literally have everything
you could possibly imagine
for your four bolt Suzuki Cappuccino or otherwise.
And if you're watching this in the month of November,
we have a whole month long of Black Friday deals going on,
so you're gonna wanna check it out.
The description link will be below.
And it's pretty awesome, all right
because don't get me wrong,
I like buying everything on Cyber Monday,
but it is a little bit of a stressor
and I lose more hair when we just do that day.
I'd rather kinda spread it out just a little bit.
The is Suzuki Cappuccino is a little itsy-bitsy car
that was produced from 1991 to 1998 in Kosai, Japan
and was a two door Roadster
that was assigned to meet the Kei,
it's an E-I, but it's an A-Y car specifications
for lower taxes and insurance in Japan.
Kei car literally translates to light automobile
and is the smallest highway legal passenger car style thing
that you can buy in Japan.
It was a great way to just not have to pay a lot in taxes
because Japan just does that.
There's someone in the comments that keeps asking
for this car, all right,
or maybe just Kei cars in general.
In either case, keep them coming, bud, all right.
The Cappuccino would weigh in just under 1,600 points
and come with a turbo-charged,
yeah, turbocharged three cylinder dual over at camp,
which was 657 CCs, all right.
Just three CCs short of the max displacement allowed
for car to be considered a Kei car, all right.
The car itself was interesting
and featured some things that other similar cars,
little baby cars, didn't, all right.
The Cappuccino could be used as a closed coupe,
coupé if you want to be fancy,
A T-top, a Targa, or a full-on convertible.
The glass bended around the rear side of the car
which was pretty interesting at the time
with most coupes just having a flat window glass
on the back.
You could take it off
and you could stuff it in the trunk,
taking up pretty much the entire amount of space,
but it was fun, all right.
Came with 63 horsepower, all right.
This monster came with four-wheel disc brakes
and rear-wheel drive, all right.
You'd even get it with power assisted steering
and a double wishbone suspension, even though,
but honestly the Cappuccino has competition,
like the Honda Beat, and the AZ-1,
which is where you get the ABCs of the Kei car.
The Cappuccino stayed alive long enough
for people like you and people like me to look at them
on the import image websites and say,
- A giant Suzuki has been sited on highway 316
and it's moving fast.
- Oh, my god, Millie.
Look. - What? What?
That giant Suzuki.
- You know, for like 10 grand,
that honestly ain't a bad idea,
plus I'll have somebody that no one else has,
plus look at it, it's so happy and excited all the time.
Oh look at it, it's a motorcycle motor pretty much.
Oh it's like a Miata, but smaller and slower.
The car only came in a few limited colors,
mostly silver, red, green, black, and blue.
You couldn't really get anything else besides that.
That's is just how it is, all right, buckle up.
You could snatch one for a pretty decent price
and scream up to zero to 60 in like, oh 11.3 seconds.
Yup. Perfect speed to go
with that limited slip differential though
and rear wheel drive, all right.
You can Initial D the (blows raspberry) out of this car.
The facelift, which wasn't really a facelift,
from 1995 to 1998, we get a Kei 6A,
which came with a bit more displacement,
a 7,500 RPM red line, more lightweight
and a slightly better zero to 60,
but it wasn't really enough to mention,
it was still very slow, okay.
And even though the car had barely any horsepower
and barely enough metal to be turned
into a shoe for Optimus prime, it was still well known.
The Suzuki Cappuccino was actually a fairly popular car
back in the day.
The car would even pop up in animes
like Initial D, all right.
And that was pretty much the go-to Strat in the nineties,
which drew up quite a bit of attention
and to the softer preemptive Miata it would later dominate,
but it worked really well before the Miata came about.
And since it was Initial D everybody wanted one, all right.
It was a soft top coupe bar kit of the early nineties.
What else could you want?
And for the most part,
they fit the need of the early nineties in Japan
until the market shifted away from the tiny boy coupes
and instead moved onwards towards the mini SUV's
and CUVs because everybody wants a CUV
and I'm not sure why, all right.
Just because the hood is bigger and feel like you sit higher
that doesn't mean that they have more space.
But my one friend that has requested this 72 times
in the comments, all right.
(explosives explode)
- Sir, there's no way we can stop it.
This Suzuki is extremely reliable.
- We are not here to talk
about the history of the Suzuki Cappuccino.
Oh no.
We are here to talk about you wanting to own, acquire,
purchase, loan, or lease one of these tiny looking,
slow if stock, fast as hell, if not Kei, cars
that single handedly confuses even more people
than Suzuki's entire passion or vehicle strategy,
because I'm still confused as to what exactly
Suzuki was trying to do back in the day, all right.
We're here to talk about you wanting
to own one of these bad boys.
So you want a Suzuki Cappuccino.
Well, sit down your high boost engine
and grab your favorite race helmet
because you're in for a damn treat
if you pick up one of these things.
But just know if you do pick up one of these things,
you are just like the person in the comments,
like the one person out of a few couple people
that are going to want one of these, this is just a thing.
Owning a Suzuki Cappuccino is like owning one
of the best examples of what a fun car could be, all right.
Fun, super compact,
just ah, ee,
and extremely simple without trying
to scare away the competition.
And it's literally just a car
that you can't help but smile at.
It's Miata, but with a mentality of less is more
because there's literally less of it.
Kei cars as a whole were a space
that manufacturers could try out different
and unique things for their platforms
without necessarily sacrificing too much money,
which is very similar to Mini and BMW's relationship,
except they're more reliable.
The updated Kei 6A used in the old Cappuccino models
would have more modification potential than its predecessor,
but you can still do quite a bit to wake
up the tiny little motor.
It makes a lot of noise
where you may not necessarily be going fast,
but in a tiny car on a big track,
it feels like you are going fast.
That's one of the best things of having a small car.
It's one of the best things of having a Miata,
or a Cappuccino, or anything very similar to it is
that the smaller they become,
the faster and more connected you feel to them.
From a modification standpoint,
you'll find that most people spend time focusing
on gripping a little car
for flat out driving with literally no breaking needs,
like that's the goal,
if you can just put the gas pedal down and steer.
you're good.
Sticky, semi-slick tires, lightweight baby wheels,
like gram lights, or even baby flower wheels,
and you're pretty much set to go
and they look pretty decent.
Tighten up the suspension with some coil overs
or lowering frames with a little bit of modification,
and you'll have a car that'll feel like it's on rails.
And it is by definition on rails, but that's pretty okay.
But people will even go even further on these things
if they want to, swapping out motors entirely as needed,
getting rid of this baby turbo three cylinder,
which really doesn't do well
once you start throwing real, real power at it
because of just the way that it was built,
a lot of plastic pieces, not metal pieces.
That's just how it goes, sometimes.
You could actually even sometimes, people would throw
in a Hayabusa motor or even a full-on passenger car motor,
you know, like with real heads, real cams,
like normal car stuff.
But when they started to do that,
sure they threw off the weight distribution,
but, holy (honk), was it fast.
But if a Hayabusa swap doesn't kill you,
the smiling will.
These cars are an absolute blast to drive.
And if you're looking to pick one up,
it's important to remember the following details
on buying a used Suzuki. Suzuki.
- [Narrator] At a Suzuki dealer,
there's a giant Suzuki that moves real fast
at your local Suzuki dealer.
It's called the Suzuki.
- Cappuccino.
You're going to be buying a car
that was predominantly only out of Japan.
Parts, reliability, and ingenuity will go hand-in-hand.
Don't pick one up if you're not willing
to be a little bit of a MacGyver at times
because the support isn't really there.
Even like the club of America for Suzuki Cappuccinos,
the website looks like 2003,
it's just a little bit dated.
Everything in the car and the support for it,
just a little bit dated.
And number one, or number two,
you buy one of these not to take yourself too seriously.
This isn't an S2000. It's not even a 350Z.
It ain't even a Miata, and Miatas are happy,
like happy as hell.
It's happier than that.
You can't even mean mug the car.
You can't be angry in the car.
It's just too happy.
And you need to be a happy person to own one of these cars
because there's no way people are gonna take you seriously
if you're pulling up, "How much does that retail for?"
Like don't, no, no, no, no.
Modification exists, but they're different than most.
They focus on the little things
that make the driving experience better
more than your typical aesthetic modifications
because not really many exist.
You'll see people throw a little bit
of over fenders on there, maybe a wing, and a diffuser,
but you really don't need any of that.
And most people just end up taping up the tail lights
and then just sending it, all right.
It's one of the ABCs of the Kei cars.
It's one that'll continue to be slowly imported
into the United States and follow the same train,
although probably a little bit smaller,
of the MG community with the Minis and the things like that
because those cars are also a blast to drive,
fun on the tracks, super great community,
not really that big, but it's a good,
it's going to put a smile on your face.
So what else would you want?
One thing to remember though is that it's still,
still a Suzuki.
So for that one person that asked for this for 73 days,
I hope we met your appetite, okay.
You can still comment, just something else for 73 days.
For everyone else that never asked for this,
be sure to check us out over at fitmentindustries.com
and hopefully you learned a thing or two
because we've seen a thing or two.
And you could maybe just think
about some sort of fun fact on a Friday night and be like,
"Yeah, I know this is about Suzuki Cappuccinos."
And your friends that all drive EVOs, or WRXs, or STIs,
they're gonna look at you like, "Why, why, why?"
Because it's fun.
I'm Alex from Fitment Industries and we will see you later.
Peace.
(upbeat music)