Yahoo Autos Ezra Dyer: My Rocky Relationship Begins
From the July/August issue of Car and Driver.
Sometimes you go looking for a car, and sometimes a car finds you. While I am prone to oddball searches just for entertainment's sake—Facebook Marketplace is basically my Tinder for the Merkur XR4Ti—I wasn't in the market for a 1990 Daihatsu Rocky. Until very recently, I was barely aware of the Rocky's existence. But then I happened upon a neighborhood estate sale, and there in the garage was the most pristine Rocky I'd ever seen. It was also the only Rocky I'd ever seen. My weird-car antenna went up like the telescoping one on a Daihatsu Rocky A-pillar, which you can reach with your left hand from the driver's seat. If you're ready for more Daihatsu Rocky facts, buckle up—just not with the center rear belt of a Rocky, because there isn't one. Supposing you ever transport five people with a Rocky, one of them will be surfing on the roof like Teen Wolf.
Before buying the Rocky, I looked to see what Car and Driver thought of it back in the day, but it turns out we didn't formally review Daihatsu's diminutive four-by-four during its three-year run in the U.S. market. Even Daihatsu's print ads basically admitted that nobody knew what these things were, with one depicting a group of people who appear to be bird-watching while ignoring the Rocky parked next to them. John Phillips must've driven one, though, because he once described the Rocky as "one of the few cars apparently capable of simultaneously summoning dive, squat, yaw, understeer, over-steer, a trade deficit, acid reflux, impotence, and a military coup in Ecuador." Chastened by this scathing assessment, I made an offer.
Soon thereafter, I became the Rocky's second owner. It was originally a birthday present for a lady named Margaret, who drove it until she was 92. It sounds like Margaret was very cool, and the paperwork in the glovebox confirmed that she took good care of her Rocky. Among the receipts was one for a new timing belt, a water pump, and spark plugs, work she'd had done when she was 85 years old. The oil had been changed twice in the past 4000 miles. The only issue: a dead battery. My immediate solution was to use a portable jump pack, which, for some reason, refused to work the first time I stopped for gas. As I pushed the Rocky away from the pumps, I felt the rear tire trying to pull the shoe off my back foot. The Rocky's wheelbase makes a penny-farthing look like a Ford Excursion.
So I was as surprised as anyone else to discover that Daihatsu's answer to the Suzuki Samurai is actually not bad to drive. It's not an exaggeration to say that the Rocky, with its control-arm front suspension and rack-and-pinion steering, has a more accurate helm than a modern Jeep Wrangler. I know that damning praise gets no fainter than that, but you appreciate precise steering when you're driving a vehicle that looks like it could be totaled by an impact with an average-size chipmunk—which would then dust itself off and attack you. You drive the Rocky the same way you ride a motorcycle, with constant vigilance and awareness of your vulnerability.
I will not claim that the Rocky is fast, but it's definitely fast enough. Its fuel-injected double-overhead-camshaft 1.6-liter inline-four makes 94 horsepower, routed through a five-speed manual and a two-speed transfer case. My past two manual-transmission vehicles, a Ford Bronco and a Dodge Ram, both had V-8s that considered 3000 rpm the stuff of the Large Hadron Collider, so I've had to adjust my driving style for a vehicle that requires at least 3000 rpm to get out of its own way or anyone else's. Although the gearing is short, fifth gear is mostly theoretical. I know it exists but haven't had occasion to visit it, sort of like Montana. Which is where Phillips lives—but that's neither here nor there, sort of like Montana.
Within a few days, I'd pulled off the Rocky's sunroof panel, rear window, and hard top and fitted a new battery. I'm ready for summer. As one friend put it, "You're in your Caribbean phase." I'm considering some minor upgrades, notably to the Sparkomatic stereo, which employs the tinniest speakers since Alexander Graham Bell said "Mr. Watson, come here." I'm also on the fence about Margaret's Yosemite Sam floor mats—I mean, in terms of cartoon characters, Rocky the Flying Squirrel was right there. Along those lines, I normally disdain vanity plates, but I wonder if YOADRIAN is up for grabs.
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