TOKYO MOTOR SHOW: Yamaha builds a ute

It might be more famous for its motorcycles, boats, outboard motors, power equipment and keyboards, but Yamaha continues to tease us with potential four-wheeled product possibilities as it prepares to become a car-maker.

Yamaha unveiled its first prototype car — the MOTIVE.e — back at the 2013 Tokyo motor show and six months before the 2015 Tokyo show, where it revealed the compact 750kg SPORTS RIDE CONCEPT coupe, it announced plans to build and sell small cars in Europe by 2019.

Now it has used this week’s 2017 Tokyo show opening to reveal its latest concept car, the Cross Hub — a compact, high-riding four-seat mini-ute.

Few technical details have been released, but Yamaha says that despite measuring just 4490mm long, 1960mm wide and 1750mm tall, the Cross Hub is “just the right size” and big enough to carry four occupants and two motorcycles.

But with a tiny tray and a diamond-shape seating layout – in which the driver sits in the middle behind a central steering wheel and in front of a rear passenger, and is flanked by two slightly rearward occupants – they’ll need to be small bikes and even smaller people.

Yamaha claims the Cross Hub, which features a pair of rear-hinged doors and wooden floors in the cabin and cargo bay, could be the perfect vehicle for inner-city dwellers who want to escape the urban jungle on weekends.

There’s no word on what would or could power the potential Yamaha pick-up, but if the company’s other car concepts are any guide it will be either a small petrol engine or an electric motor, rather than the V6 or V8 engines it developed for Ford and Volvo respectively.

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