In a world where trucks keep getting bigger and faster, the diminutive Kei truck offers an alternative.
Diminutive and slow, with a charmingly outdated look, so-called Kei trucks are completely out of sync with the American truck and SUV market. In many states, in fact, they’re not allowed on highways or even public roads in general. Yet these distinctly oddball, humble, and un-macho vehicles—think of them as the anti-Cybertruck—are having a moment. U.S. sales of the idiosyncratic Japanese trucks, while severely constrained by regulatory and other factors, have reportedly tripled since 2018 to about 7,500 a year, drawing outsize attention (and social media love) precisely because they’re everything a “normal” truck isn’t.
