Daichi

**Daichi Automotive Ltd.** is an automotive company founded in the 14th of september, 1946, as a subsidiary to the **Daichi Industries** conglomerate. It was founded by the founder of the conglomerate Hideki Daichi, who wanted to create a name in the newly born domestic automotive market. Daichi Automotive is currently a giant, and one of the biggest money makers of the Daichi Industries conglomerate.

Most of their cars are sold under the Daichi Automotive brand, their kei cars are sold under the Micron brand, and J-Star and Himalayan specialize in ultra luxury cars for the former, and offroaders for the latter.

## Daichi

### Key people

Sojiro Kimura, current CEO, Ethan Ross, head designer

### Divisions

Daichi Automotive, Daichi Motorsports, Micron, J-Star, Himalayan

## History

In post WW2 Japan, the country was trying to rebuild, and people were starting to buy small cars. Back then the Daichi Industries conglomerate was pretty new, but already established, and they needed a way to make money, in order to fund the divisions. Hideki Daichi, the founder of the Daichi Industries conglomerate, needed to find the optimal solution to this problem.

At a board meeting in May, 1946, a person at the meeting proposed to create an automotive company, and try to expand and dominate in the very new automotive market. Hideki liked the idea, and quickly converted some old **Daichi Defense** establishments into automotive factories.

On September 14th, 1946, the first ever Daichi car, the **DM1**, was rolled out of the assembly line, it quickly proved to be a massive success, and quickly became known as "the Model T of Japan".

In the 1960s Daichi's popularity was increasing a lot, and they tried expanding into Europe with the **Daichi X-SV**, an experimental sportscar to compete with the likes of Triumph, MG and Alfa Romeo. It made a nice little niche for itself, but it didn't get the mainstream success of the likes of the MG MGB and Alfa Romeo Duetto.

Still in the 1960s, they developed a car known as the **Daichi Modica**, it was supposed to be a mid tier hatchback and sedan, but the competitive price, decent performance and stellar reliability gave it enormous sales numbers, making it one of the best sellers of the company. The Modica nameplate still exists today, and every new Modica that comes out is a new sales record.

In the 1970s they didn't have many difficulties, the Modica was still an extremely big seller, the new higher end **Daichi Dominus** and the lower end **Daichi Videte** were still good sellers in Europe and Asia respectively, and in the USA, Daichi was becoming an extremely big name, thanks in part to the oil crisis, and the enormous sales numbers of the Modica.

The company had it's fair share of problems in the 1980s, mismanagement, as well as lack of sales of the Dominus in Europe, as customers were gravitating towards smaller sportscars, didn't help Daichi a lot. But in the 80s Daichi acquired the dying **Himalayan** brand, and started to produce good selling SUVs such as the **Himalayan Desert Cross** and the mid tier **Himalayan HD-V6**. But after the bad things, good things will come.

The 1990s were probably the golden years of Daichi, they started to produce sportier and more luxurious models, such as the 3rd generation of the **Daichi Etherea**, which became a real tuning legend, and still has a cult like following today. But other models didn't go under the radar, like the brand new **Daichi 61DM**, the **Modica RX-R** and the return of an old nameplate, the **Daichi X-SV NEO**, which finally became a sales success, and is still produced today in the 5th generation, counting the original X-SV. Daichi also acquired 2 new divisions, **J-Star** and **Micron**. J-Star was a project of the head designer, who wanted to create luxury cars in a different brand, the idea was liked by the CEO and J-Star started producing new cars,most notable being the **J-Star Vittoria** and the **J-Star Elizabeth**, as well as the return of the Dominus. Micron was instead a project created by the CEO himself, wanting to separate the Kei cars from the normal cars. The most notable kei cars of the 1990s were the **Micron Gelato** and the **Micron X-KV**, which was supposed to be an XS-V but in kei car form. Himalayan wasn't let out, as the new Desert Cross and the brand new **Himalayan 4CLIMB** which was very successful with young people.

But the 2000s sadly weren't as exciting as the 1990s, yes, there was the 3rd gen XS-V NEO, but that was about it. The new **Modica RX-S** wasn't as exciting as the RX-R, and both the Etherea and the 61DM were out of production. The new **Daichi Tris**, successor of the Videte, was succesful in Europe and Asia, as a budget car, and there was a new model, known as the **Daichi Fisher**, which was even available in V6 form, but it wasn't enough to make car enthusiasts come back. J-Star didn't have an amazing decade as well, with the restyling of the Vittoria not being as succesful as the original, and the Elizabeth being completely removed from the lineup. Himalayan was selling well with the Desert Cross, 4CLIMB and the new **Himalayan Yeti 4x4**, which became the soccer mom's choice vehicle.

The 2010s tho, were good years, the Modica, Tris and Fisher all recieved amazing new generations, the 5th gen X-SV NEO was a back to basics to the MK2, the Etherea was brought back both in 6 and 4 cylinder form, and there were 2 new supercars, in the form of the more entry level **Daichi EN-R** and the extremely limited **Daichi DR-10R.** J-Star had its best year so far, with the new **J-Star Conte**, a restyling of the Vittoria and a return of the Elizabeth. They also collaborated with Himalayan to release a luxury SUV, the **J-Star Mountaineer**, which can be considered their best seller. An amazing CEO and perfect marketing did the trick in making this a good decade fir Daichi.

What will the 2020s give to Daichi? That we don't know yet...

## Models

This is the list of all the cars built by Daichi.

Daichi DM1, built from 1946 to 1989