A lot of you may have heard during the week that Daihatsu will be pulling up stumps in Australia in March 2006. When I heard about it, 31 March, I emailed Daihatsu's PR people checking for April Fools jokes (like Toyota's 2004 effort, claiming that Peter Brock would be spearheading a Toyota V8Supercar entry), but its all legit.

I've read all of Toyota's reasoning, the main point being that the light car market has become too competitive. The issue I have is that they have just released the new Sirion (a fine little car, might I say, having gone over one today), but surely they would have seen the market movement long before they locked in the Sirion release?

It just seems to be a bit short-sighted of a big mob like Toyota ... oh, I forgot, these are the same people that gave us the original Avalon (nice car, shame about the face ) ... oh, and the T-18 ... and the Starfire ("Backfire") powered Corona ...

All jokes aside, it just seems a damn shame that Daihatsu is clearing out just as it finally releases a decent vehicle.

Hey, don't be dissin' the T-18...

Maybe if Toyota is nice they will rebadge the Sirion GTli under the Toyota brand for release down here, but I strongly doupt it...

Hey look at my list of past cars.

The T18 at least looked good. Steel wheels with chrome trim and all.

Didn't handle very well and didn't have a powerful engine actually underpowered but hell it had steel wheels with chrome trim.

Ok, ok, I'll take back what I said about the T18 ... I didn't realise the fan club was that big!

However, the first person who comes on here and says I was unfair on the "Backfire" Corona shall be forced to drive one (or the Holden Sunbird equivalent) until the pistons drop out of it!

Yeah, it's a bit of a puzzle why they'd realease the new Sirion - which looks good, and then pull out immediately after...

Sunturd. My oldies had one it really served them well.

What was Holden thinking get an old six cylinder holden motor attack it with a hack saw chop of two cylinders and you have a great four cylinder. I think not.

My first car was a 73 Kingswood wagon with the old 202 (3.3 litre) red motor, didn't exactly set the road on fire, but it was reliable to a fault, cheap as chips to maintain and/or repair, and in the Kingswood you just about had enough room to stand in the engine bay with it! Fuel was an issue, though, a BIG issue. But that car had been in our family almost 15 years before I got my mits on it and we never had one ounce of trouble.

There was another Holden six, the 173 (2.85 litre) ... most of the 202's good points, except for the fact that it was as gutless a six as you'd ever find. This was the motor you referred to ... how chopping 1/3 of the motor off was going to help torque, I'll never know! Funnily enough, neither does Holden!

I have driven a Sunbird, one my aunty owned a few years ago. I've also driven tractors that went harder, handled better, and were more economical.