Hino Contessa 1300

The Hino Contessa 1300 was the second generation of the Hino Contessa, a rear-engined family saloon built by the Japanese maker Hino Motors and launched in Japan on 26 September 1964. Its body was styled by the Italian designer Giovanni Michelotti, and it was longer, wider and heavier than the first Contessa 900. It was sold as a saloon and, from April 1965, as a two-door coupe, and it was powered by a water-cooled 1,251 cc four-cylinder engine mounted behind the rear axle. Hino had fixed the basic design in May 1961 and sent its requirements to Michelotti in August of that year. The car was exported to Australia, Switzerland and the Netherlands, and was assembled in Haifa in Israel from 1965 to 1968 and in New Zealand. Series production stopped in March 1967 after Hino's alliance with Toyota, and 55,027 of the second generation were built, of which 3,868 were coupes.