Hino Contessa

The Hino Contessa is an automobile that Hino Motors produced from 1961 to 1967. It was developed largely from the Renault 4CV powertrain of 1947 to 1961, under license to Hino Motors, and it was offered in both coupe and sedan body styles. It replaced the Hino Renault, which was the Renault 4CV manufactured by Hino for Japan, and it was adapted into a small pickup truck called the Hino Briska. As Hino had a business relationship with Renault at the time and adapted the powertrain from an existing Renault product, there are clear similarities to the Renault Dauphine. A total of 47,299 of the PC series Contessa were built between April 1961 and the second quarter of 1964, and the Contessa Sprint was introduced at the Tokyo Auto Show and the Turin Motor Show in 1962 and at the New York Auto Show in 1963.