Toyota Passo Sette 7-seater MPV

Toyota’s latest compact 7-seater MPV has been unveiled in Japan on Christmas day, so let’s check out the full details of the new compact people carrier that will make its way onto Malaysian shores sometime in the second half of 2009 as the new Perodua MPV.
As with alot of other Toyota compact cars, the new MPV is available under both the Toyota and Daihatsu badges as compact cars like these are pretty much mainly Daihatsu-engineered as it is their speciality.

The Toyota version is called the Toyota Passo Sette, which essentially means Passo Seven, or a 7-seater version of the Toyota Passo. Sette means seven in Italian. The Daihatsu version is called the Daihatsu Boon Luminas, where Luminas is a combination of the words roomy and luminous.

All variants of the Passo Sette and the Boon Luminas are powered by the 1.5 liter 3SZ-VE engine putting out 109 PS at 6,000rpm and 141Nm of torque at 4,400rpm. Both front wheel drive and 4WD variants use a 4-speed auto, and the front wheel drive version is rated at 15.6km per liter under the 10-15 Japanese test cycle. There is an Eco-Drive indicator light on the dashboard to inform the driver when his driving style is economical.

As previously reported, the compact Toyota Passo Sette measures 4,180mm long, 1,695mm wide and 1,620mm tall, with a long 2,750mm wheelbase to maximize the interior space which is 2,550mm long. The Boon Luminas CX with a bodykit is slightly longer at 4,195mm. Other dimensions that Toyota has provided include a 1,630mm space between the front and rear seat rows, a 150mm split seat slide for the middle row, a wide 935mm rear door opening to ease getting in and out, and a 630mm hip point for the driver to also aide ingress and egress.
Despite the car’s relatively long wheelbase its wheels are at the edges of the vehicle so it is compact and it has a 5.2m turning radius.
Toyota has provided the Toyota Passo Sette with some nice features in the interior including a rear seat entertainment system with a 7 inch widescreen monitor, a DVD player with headphone outputs, and the ability to play different media in the front and rear entertainment systems. There is an optional keyless entry and start with a key fob.
The Boon Luminas also comes standard with a “music server”, which essentially lets you rip 660 minutes of audio content from your audio CDs and store it onto the car’s on-board entertainment system so you don’t have to carry your CDs around in your car. This is also a specifiable option for the Toyota Passo Sette.
The Japanese specs offers some rather decent safety features, though in the interests of cost and maximizing profit I doubt all of them will make it onto the Perodua specifications. The Passo Sette and Boon Luminas has a total of 6 SRS airbags, vehicle stability control (VSC), traction control, Dynamic Support Headrests which reduce the risk of rear-end collision whiplash, and finally ABS brakes.
Now for the Japanese market prices. The Daihatsu Boon Luminas has higher specs so it is more expensive starting from 1,535,000 yen all the way up to 2,073,000 yen, while the lower spec Toyota Passo Sette starts from 1,490,000 yen but can be fully loaded up to a maximum price of 2,033,000 yen.