2008 Daihatsu Sirion

Daihatsu Sirion

The Daihatsu Sirion was always pitched as no-nonsense city transport, the sort you could park anywhere in Braamfontein without a second thought. Think back to when the Toyota Aygo or the first-gen Suzuki Swift were everywhere—simple, honest hatchbacks built to stretch a paycheque, not your patience. Both manual and automatic versions came with a 1.3-litre petrol, so you didn’t need an engineering degree to keep it running. Now, with just two active listings in the whole country—one at R89,500 for the manual, the other at R82,500 for the auto—the Sirion’s become more of a unicorn than a used-car lot regular. At a median R86,000, it’s miles below the sticker shock you get with even the cheapest modern hatches, and that matters if you’re just after an affordable runabout. Both cars on offer are from 2008 or 2009, meaning you’re looking at hatchbacks pushing 16 years old. The average mileage is a mere 71,000 km, which is impressively low for something that’s seen more than a decade and a half of Gauteng sun. Makes you wonder if they were grandma’s shopping trolleys or just Sunday specials. Oddly, the automatic is the cheaper of the pair—R82,500—so if you pack smart and want a city commuter, that’s the pick. The Sirion’s calling card has always been mechanical simplicity and dirt-cheap running costs, which is why a certain breed of buyer still goes hunting for them. The snag? Sourcing parts can be a pain, because Daihatsu’s local dealer footprint vanished years ago. Against an old Swift or Getz, that’s the Sirion’s Achilles’ heel—but if you’re patient, there’s real value here.