Your basic tiny roadster

At six feet tall and five feet wide (okay, that latter is an exaggeration), I'm not really a candidate for a Japanese home-market kei car, but some of them look awfully interesting in the context of three-buck regular.

Daihatsu, a Toyota affiliate which sold cars here only for four years, offers some weirdmobiles like the Naked, which probably wouldn't sell here just because of its name.

Then there's the Copen, which I suppose they could dub "Topless," now actually making some headway in the UK — although the usual 660-cc engine has been replaced by a 1.3-liter monster making 85 hp. Not a lot of ponies, but the Copen weighs only about 1900 lb, so there's more than adequate thrust. From a British review:

"Cheap" is a relative term: the Copen sells for £10,995 in the UK, about $22,000 US, or close to MX-5 / Solstice / Sky territory. Still, "cute as they come" has a lot to recommend it, and maybe Toyota, which owns 51 percent or so of Daihatsu, can be persuaded to badge it as a Scion and ship a few thousand our way. I promise not to find it swishy.