What Is a Hino Dutro?

The Hino Dutro is a light commercial truck from Hino Motors, Ltd., which is a division of Japanese multinational automaker Toyota Motor Corporation. It is officially known as the Hino 300 series. As of May 2011, it is the lightest commercial truck from Hino, with the other series of trucks being the Hino 500; Hino 600, or Ranger Pro; and Hino Profia, or 700.

Named after the city in which it is headquartered and founded in 1942, the Hino division of Toyota mainly focuses on manufacturing trucks and buses. The Hino Dutro came into existence when it replaced the Hino Ranger 2/3 in 1999. It is based on the platforms of the Toyota Dyna and its twin, the Toyota Toyoace, which are also light commercial trucks. By 2002, Toyota had begun to rebrand some of the Dynas and Toyoaces as Dutros.

The Hino Dutro is roughly divided into two body styles: the standard cab and the wide cab. The standard cab uses the Toyota/Hino U300 platform. The wide cab, on the other hand, is built on the U400 platform. Each Hino Dutro has a 4x2 drive train, which means that its two-wheel drive (2WD) consists of two of its four wheels being driven.

The standard cab version of the Hino Dutro has a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 4,300 or 5,500 pounds (1,950 or 2,495 kilograms). Its 4,009-cubic centimeter (245-cubic inch) four-cylinder diesel engine generates 77 kilowatts (kW), or 105 Pferdestarke (horse strength in German, abbreviated as ps) at 3,200 revolutions per minute (rpm). The maximum speed range of the standard cab is about 67 to 76 miles per hour (mph), or 109 to 122 kilometers per hour (km/h).

The wide cab version of the Hino Dutro is heavier than its standard cab counterpart, with a GVWR range of 5,500 to 8,500. Also, it replaces the standard cab’s six-speed transmission with a seven-speed, and some wide cabs have two choices of turbocharged engines that increase power to 96 kW (130 ps) at 2,500 rpm, and 114 kW (155 ps) at 2,700 rpm. The wide cab’s maximum speed range is about 62 to 76 mph (99 to 112 km/h).

The Hino Dutro has a very limited export market. The truck is sold in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Latin America. Toyota/Hino extended the Dutro’s international reach to Canada in 2008, where it is sold as the Hino 155. The vehicles are assembled in Woodstock, Ontario, using knock-down kits sent from Japan.