1999 Mitsubishi Minicab 4WD Kei Van Is Junkyard Treasure near Denver

While I find the occasional non-US-market vehicle during my junkyard travels, these are most likely to be machines that drove across the border from Mexico or Canada and then never made it home.

Japanese-market kei vans exist on our side of the Pacific—in fact, I have one as my daily driver—but you wouldn't expect to find them in your local Ewe Pullet. That makes today's Junkyard Treasure, found in a yard located between Denver and Cheyenne, extra special.

Mitsubishi has been building the Minicab since 1963, and you can still buy a new Minicab (in Japan) today.

Actually, only the electric version of the current Minicab (which, sadly, you can't buy in the United States) is a true Mitsubishi; the gasoline-powered Minicab has been a rebadged Suzuki Carry for the past decade. Today's discarded van is from the first model year of the final generation of Mitsubishi-built Minicabs.

Why is it here? One sniff of the interior told me the answer; this car got caught in a flood (an unfortunately frequent occurrence in this part of Colorado) and must have stayed submerged in mud and silt for quite a while. The smell is terrible, rendering all of the upholstery permanently useless, and all of the electrical components would have been destroyed by their unexpected underwater adventure.

Then someone bashed a forklift blade through the windshield and lifted the poor drowned Minicab up by its aluminum roof, bending the body beyond economically sane repair.

As I've learned, kei vans are very useful vehicles in the United States, though they're not great for long highway drives. They have amazing cargo capacity over a microscopic footprint, and they get scooter-like fuel economy (my Subaru Sambar regularly gets 60 miles per gallon in town).

This one would have been legal to import just months before its demise, under the federal 25-year rule. The end to its American career came very quickly.

The engine is a 657cc (that's 0.66 liters or 41 cubic inches) inline-three, rated at 63 hp. The van's curb weight is about 2,100 pounds, which gives it about the same power-to-weight numbers as a typical mid-1970s Honda Civic or Datsun B210.

The engine is located below the front seats; a sticker on this one shows that it was a used or rebuilt replacement that was installed in 2013.

If you're looking for some 12-inch diameter wheels with the popular 4x100 bolt pattern, get over to Greeley, Colorado, and buy the ones on this Minicab!

This van was only legal to import to the United States this year, under the 25-year rule.

Unfortunately, it got totaled by a flood. Note the mildew growing on the JDM radio.

Feel fortunate that you can't smell the interior through your screen, because that flooded-car smell is baaaaad in this case. And keep in mind that the humidity around here is usually about 10% and the interior has had a couple of summer months to dry out.

That said, the metal and glass parts should still be useful to local Minicab owners.

This is a U60-series Minicab, which debuted as a 1999 model and is still in production (though only in EV form; the gasoline-burning Minicab has gone through a couple of subsequent generations).

The transmission is a five-speed manual.

It has air conditioning, which is nice to have during a hot and muggy Japanese summer.

Kei vans use cute little batteries.

The engine is a 657cc (that's 0.66 liters) inline-three.

Kei vans have tiny footprints, but their tall height makes them incredibly spacious for cargo.