Daihatsu Copen Active Top
A kei car that folds its metal roof into the boot
2002 Japan Daihatsu Copen Active Top · Calreyn88 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Research pending
A matching completed auction sale has not been verified for this exact year, body, trim, engine, transmission and market.
Joyride shows this gap instead of substituting an asking price, unsold bid or mismatched special vehicle.
More than a set of wheels.
Daihatsu previewed the idea as the KOPEN concept in 1999, showed a COPEN concept in 2001 and launched the production car across Japan on 19 June 2002. Its name compressed 'Compact Open car', while the launch theme was 'Active Top Compact Open'. By combining a 660 cc turbo engine, a purpose-tuned chassis and Japan's first electrically operated folding hardtop in the kei class, Daihatsu tried to make open-air sports-car fun small enough for everyday Japanese roads and regulations.
Look a little closer.
Its metal roof folds into the boot, turning a tiny kei coupé into an open roadster.
Photos show an example of the model or generation. The pictured vehicle’s year, equipment, or modifications can differ from the specification described here.
The roof changes the whole car, not just the weather
A folding hardtop asks the boot to perform two jobs: carry luggage when the roof is raised and swallow the roof when it is lowered. That is why Daihatsu published a roof-closed VDA luggage figure and engineered the Active Top as a defining system, not an accessory. The mechanism also let the car feel enclosed like a coupe when shut, which makes the name Copen—compact plus open, with coupe-like character—an engineering summary rather than only wordplay.
Source: New light open sports car Copen launch release, 19 June 2002 ↗Designing joy inside kei-car limits
The 64 PS output was not an attempt to chase supercar numbers. Daihatsu paired the kei-sized engine with low mass, a compact footprint, quick controls and a dedicated suspension so the driver could use more of the car's performance more often. The 1999 KOPEN concept and 2001 COPEN show car reveal that this was a sustained design project, culminating in the June 2002 production launch rather than a one-off novelty.
Source: New light open sports car Copen launch release, 19 June 2002 ↗Where these facts come from
- New light open sports car Copen launch release, 19 June 2002
- Twenty years since the first-generation Copen launch
- First-generation Copen retrospective
Selected facts checked for this edition. Some source pages link to broader model families. Last reviewed October 2, 2026.