Too many of America’s states are attacking innocent little Kei trucks right now, but if you don’t live in one of those places, I have a treat for you. Up for grabs is a totally rad pairing. This custom purple 1997 Honda Acty is hauling a custom color-matched 2020 Honda Grom with an extended swingarm and air suspension. If this isn’t the cutest couple in recent times I don’t know what is.
This will be the second Honda Acty we’ve written about in recent times. That last truck sold for a frankly shocking $40,700 and I still don’t see where all of the money went. This is different. Someone went through the work of making this Acty one of the hardest Kei trucks I’ve ever seen and the Grom on the back is simply icing on the cake. Even cooler is the fact that the Bring a Trailer auction has just a day to go, but this rig is going for a far more reasonable $17,200 as of writing.
Put on some dark shades and let’s go for a ride!
Ancestry
The Honda Acty is one of many Kei trucks Americans are bringing into America. While states like Maine and Michigan frown upon these rides, many enthusiastic Americans have found these little trucks to be great vehicles. In my travels, I’ve found that Kei truck owners are people who use their trucks for their small businesses. Kei truck owners are also people who use their trucks on the farm, off-road, or in the city, where something like a Ford F-150 is just too big.
Kei trucks aren’t fast, but their utility is practically endless. They’re also just something different. Nobody cares if you park the latest Silverado in your driveway, but everyone from kids to grumpy adults just love looking at Kei vehicles.
Just about any Kei truck is great, but Honda’s is especially cool since it’s a descendant of the brand’s first production car. In 1955, Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) unveiled the concept for a people’s car.
Honda missed the boat on this initiative because company founder Soichiro Honda wanted the vehicles attached to his name to be perfect. The company would spend so much time developing its cars that, by the early 1960s, Honda was under the threat of being consolidated under MITI’s then-new plan to supercharge Japan’s industries. Suddenly, Soichiro had no choice but to make some cars or face elimination, so he ordered two mini sports cars and two mini trucks to be readied that same year.
The first of those vehicles to reach series production was the T360 micro truck. In 1967, the T360 evolved into the TN360, one of the direct predecessors of the 1977 Honda Acty.
So what you’re looking at here is sort of a piece of history. It’s a descendant of the little truck that helped start it all.
These Purple Beauties
This 1997 Honda Acty made it over to America in 2022, where it underwent a transformation to bring it to what you see today. The truck’s being sold by its builder, the Joe’s Mini Trucks customization shop.
According to the Bring a Trailer listing, the truck started off with basic white paint like so many other Kei trucks. Then, earlier this year, the truck was repainted in Midnight Purple, the famous color of the Nissan Skyline GT-R R34. The paint job looks really good, but is limited to the exterior. The inside of the truck remains white.
The paint alone is really cool, but Joe’s Mini Trucks and its partner shops went the extra mile here. The truck has Bride upholstery on its seats and headrests, plus a Sparco steering wheel and Bride shift knob. Okay, that’s pretty neat, but then you read about how the truck now has a custom gauge cluster with a tachometer and how the truck now has a custom power steering system. Admittedly, these trucks are so light that they don’t need power steering, but it’s still wild that they went through the work to give the truck working power steering. The interior rounds out with the mention of a dash clock, a custom Pioneer sound system, and air horns.
Moving back outside, the truck wears a set of Enkei RPF1 wheels plus has some custom bodywork in the form of a spoiler on the back of the cab, another spoiler up front, and custom fenders. There’s also a clear engine cover, LED lighting, a special ramp for the Grom, and a wheel chock. The listing continues:
The 656cc inline-three was factory rated at 38 horsepower and 40 lb-ft of torque, and it has been fitted with a Magnaflow exhaust system with a tubular header. It was serviced by the seller with Redline MTL fluids, an A/C filter, a valve cover gasket, NGK Premium RX spark plugs, and replacement ignition wires along with a replacement ignition cap and rotor.
Honestly, I’d be here all day if I were to try listing out all of the mods, which include suspension work, too. So just click here to read everything that was done.
The representative for Joe’s Mini Trucks says the idea here was to make the ultimate Kei street truck. That’s why this truck is rear-wheel-drive. Likewise, the shop notes that big mods on these trucks like turbos are spendy without a lot of actual gain, so the goal was to make the best Acty they could with various bolt-ons and reducing weight.
Now we move to the truck’s companion, and it’s Honda’s mini rockstar, the Grom. This Grom has been painted to match the truck and they even went as far as to put the Bride upholstery on the motorcycle’s saddle, too. Now, a factory Grom is a silly stunt machine that’s also a great commuter and learning bike all in one. This one’s not exactly that, judging from the list of mods:
- Extended swingarm and drive chain
- Mojo Customs front and rear lowering kit
- Goodridge stainless-steel brake hoses
- Custom fairings and prop stand
- Air-ride rear suspension and onboard air compressor
- TST fender eliminator with LED lights
- DROWsports side-stand bypass switch
- Custom foot controls
Mojo Customs clip-on handlebars are mounted with mini mirrors and sit aft of a digital instrument display with a bar-style tachometer along with readouts for vehicle speed, fuel level, and time. The digital odometer shows 1,500 miles.
More Rad Than You Can Handle
Now, there’s a saying in the car community that mods don’t add value. I generally agree with that up to a point, and I think this combo far exceeds that point. You’re getting a sweet Grom and a unique Kei truck in one package here and I think most of the mods add rather than take away.
Even better is the fact that this doesn’t really “hurt” anyone. If these mods aren’t for you, there are countless stock Kei trucks coming across the border daily for dirt cheap.
The craftsmanship appears to be high with both of these builds and I bet the buyer is going to have a ball of fun driving these around. It’s also just cool to see that there’s a Kei-tuning culture here in America. Maybe states like Rhode Island could see the passion put into projects like these and rethink their agendas. Either way, if you’re “down to clown” with these purple rides, they’ll be on Bring a Trailer for another day. I’d love to see the outfit of someone who drives this pair.
(Images: Joe’s Mini Trucks, unless otherwise noted.)
That Acty is awesome, but $27K for it, even with a stretched matching Grom, is a bit rich for my blood. There’s a beautiful turquoise blue Acty branded for Calpico beverages that shows up to the Long Beach JDM car show sometimes… it’s a friggin’ work of art too. 🙂
I can just see all of the fingerPrince left by all of those wanting to take a closer look at it!
My wife is Bonsai sized and likes purple, I would so love to buy this for her (she has a motorcycle license and can drive a manual)
I only wish the purple was less on the dark side. It’s almost black in some of those shots. Otherwise, I love them.
Was in Lahaina about a 1.5 years ago (before the fire), and there was a Grom gang that rolled through while we were eating outside. All were modified, and had huge swingarms, some even longer than this one on sale. Probably my favorite pic and memory from that trip. That and seeing a rental Wrangler with a death wobble were definitely the top 2, and we saw whales and waterfalls and all sorts of other stuff.
There’s something about impractical modifications on undersized vehicles that just make me smile.
The Acty would be great, but I don’t have any need for a Grom, much less one that has been stretched and is so low that it looks like every turn is gonna involve scraping something.
The whole package is really cool looking, though.
There are 239 pics on the auction. Not a single one shows the bike in ride height. The seller did eventually post this in the comments, and it looks like it rides at a normal height.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=vY5MKByxGjjCsZeO&v=zzsqJ6dvASc&feature=youtu.be
Okay, that isn’t too bad, then. Still don’t need a Grom, but it’s much better.
Too bad Prince died.
Now I want to see someone pair a 4WD Acty with a Trail 125.
That Acty looks great, or it will once you remove the front wing.
That Grom though….it’s going to take a lot of work to unfuck that thing. It’s been pretty well trashed.
Not as trashed as the exhaust will be as soon as you hit even a minor bump in the road.
I think airing up the suspension should probably solve that..
I was thinking about that, and had a thought:
The front splitter provides downforce right? So you could replace the rods that are holding it, with chains, so that at speed on a road, the downforce would pull it down, and the chains would pass this force onto the chassis, but if you came to a speed bump, it would still scrape, but the chains would allow it to lift up without smashing.