Jim Davis’ miniature fleet

This thing going down the highway, you feel like you’re driving NASCAR.”

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Storm Lakers might do a double take when they see Jim Davis cruising down East Milwaukee Avenue. Davis, who lives in rural Schaller and owns Square Deal Appliance in Storm Lake, is also the proud owner of not just one, but three miniature working Japanese cars.

“I’ve just always liked small cars,” said Davis. “I mean, it’s kind of a joke driving it around, too. It’s a little silly but it says I know I’m in on the joke.”

Davis most frequently rides around town in a 1997 turquoise Daihatsu Midget. “You can drive this anywhere,” he said. It’s narrow and can only fit a single person, because in Japan the driver would “pull up in an alley next to the walls and still get out,” Davis said.

“In Japan they call it the bartender’s car because every independent bartender owns one,” Davis said. “They’re just a little tiny urban delivery truck.”

The Daihatsu is slightly slower than Davis’s other cars because it has a four-speed transmission. “It’ll do 60 but that’s all it’s got,” he said.

Davis has owned the Daihatsu for two years and even featured it in the Fourth of July parade last year. He put a refrigerator in the truck bed — “the biggest one I could find,” he said — to advertise his business. 

In Iowa, a car becomes classic when it turns 25 years old. That means Davis’s three vehicles did not have to pass certain requirements like crash or emissions tests.

“They do not pass crash tests,” Davis laughed. “They do not.”

Davis also said the cars require cheaper insurance and driver’s license fees than standard American vehicles. Though in Japan, the Daihatsu and Davis’s small white truck would be considered “sort of your standard small-size vehicle,” he said.

Livin’ Large

Davis said he purchased all three of his small vehicles online. He bought the white pickup, a 1994 Subaru Sambar truck, from a Kansas farmer on Facebook Marketplace. The farmer used the truck as an off-road vehicle primarily for hunting.

Davis said he hopes to make the truck functional by the time snow arrives. Because it has four-wheel drive, Davis said, “I’ll probably title it and drive it to work, at least in the winter.”

Like the Daihatsu, which he customized with a “livin’ large” sticker, Davis’s truck boasts a goofy label. “It says yee-haw in one direction and bonsai! in the other, because it was an old Japanese business,” Davis said.

Davis’s third and final tiny car is a 1997 Subaru Sambar van. Upon first glance, it appears as if someone shrunk a regular flat-faced minivan. Davis ordered the van and the Daihatsu from an online dealer in Japan, shipped it to Texas, and had a friend  transport it back to Iowa. In total, each car cost Davis less than $10,000.

Davis still needs to install an alternator in the van but said he wants to make it his primary mode of transportation once it’s street ready. The van gets higher mileage, so “it’s probably going to be the daily driver to work in the morning,” Davis said.

The van is also equipped with an automatic transmission, a glass roof and air conditioning, which Davis said is relatively rare for Japanese vehicles. The van is also legal on the Iowa interstate, can reach 70 miles per hour and even fits a washer and dryer in the back, as Davis can personally attest.

“This thing going down the highway, you feel like you’re driving NASCAR,” Davis said. “Engine’s running 6,000 RPMs and everything’s just howling.”

Driving the small vehicles requires more attention, Davis said. “You feel what you’re doing a lot more.”

Davis said he will likely drive one of the cars in this year’s Fourth of July parade. But to Davis, “everywhere you go is like a parade.”

“I’m kind of an introvert and I don’t normally walk up to people, but people walk up to me all the time,” he said. “Everyone that sees you knows that you’re an easygoing person.”