After the South African launch of the Daihatsu Materia, in 2007, a motoring journalist penned:
“It has an urban street fighter look that lends itself to some go-faster tuning and I wonder how long it will be..?”
Well, a little more than a year later and in response to his question, we’re proud to launch our “Urban Street Fighter” – the Materia DRD, here, at JIMS ‘08.
The After Sales Team at Daihatsu had a field day when they were given the green light to start with the development of the new DRD. The strong base that they had to start from included the Materia’s very distinctive look, its short gearing, light steering and tight turning circle, the 1.5 litre engine (with variable valve timing), distributorless ignition system and the fact that the wheels are set solidly right at all four corners, ensuring exceptional road holding as well as loads more interior space.
Imagine taking the well rounded package that is the Daihatsu Materia and adding a turbocharger, intercooler, performance free-flow exhaust, upgraded induction system, Uni Q performance chip and MOMO racing steering wheel!
That’s exactly what they have done and the result is the Materia DRD (Daihatsu Racing Development), Limited Edition.
Performance
Power is up from 76 kW to 110 kW at 5 000 rpm and the torque has jumped from 132 Nm to a very impressive 195 Nm at 4 400 rpm, this is an increase of over 40% in power and torque from this still unstressed 1.5 litre, but now force fed powerplant.
With the boost set up to run at 0.3 bar at 3000 rpm and a conservative 0.6 bar at 5000 rpm, maximum boost is achieved at maximum revolutions per minute, in 5th gear. (A close to perfect setup for performance AND everyday driveability.)
Acceleration times have come down dramatically, the benchmark 0-100 km/h sprint is a massive, minimum 2 seconds quicker, the ¼ mile flashes past some 10 km/h faster, and the longer 1 km sprint is also taken care of a whole lot quicker than before. Numbers now good enough to rival many a mini hot hatch costing substantially more.
Top speed is limited to 200 km/h and achieved easily and effortlessly, but more importantly, at 120km/h the fuel consumption stays around the 14 km / litre mark, a traditional Daihatsu trait that has not been compromised on with this upgrade.
Suspension
Interior
Exterior
Daihatsu is well known for their innovative approach to performance orientated motoring and this has been proved once again with our new “mini hotrod with attitude”, the Materia DRD, that has been turned into something even hotter and taken the DRD concept to new performance heights!
Now of course, the race to get hold of one these limited edition models, is definitely on.
The Daihatsu Materia DRD: Versatility, Safety, Spaciousness and NOW, with Daihatsu Racing Performance!
