More T-shirts featuring old Japanese cars are popping up all over the place. Normally they’re all the popular models from Nissan and Toyota, leaving kei car fans a bit left out. But thanks to JNCer xemoto, here’s one of a Honda N600! It’s part of a series that also features a Subaru 360, BRE Datsun 510 leading an Alfa Romeo, and a whole host of other European microcars.

Hondas, if you please [LINK]

The Petersen Automotive Museum is one of the planet’s most famous galleries of motorized machinery. Established in 1994, its self-stated goal is to let visitors “explore the evolution of the Automobile and its impact on our culture.” Fittingly, its four-story building is located on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, the epicenter of car customizing culture in the US. As you read these words, the Petersen is holding a special exhibition called “Microcars: The Minimum in Motoring” that celebrates vehicles which are very, very small. Of course, some of the best examples of the genre are simultaneously Japanese, nostalgic, and cars, so here are some photos of the buggies from J-land.

The Honda N600 (left) and the Z600 both used the same air-cooled aluminum two-cylinder 598cc engine. Small but not simple, it boasted an overhead cam and yes, that thing had a hemi (-spherical combustion chamber). The N600 was Honda’s first official import to the US and while production ended in September 1970, the sportier Z began manufacture in October that same year. Achieving upwards of 40 miles per gallon came in handy when OPEC decided to withhold the barrels in ‘73.

Soichiro Honda was a visionary in Japan’s fledgling automotive industry. Few men would attempt a two-seat roadster like this 1965 S600 as his first salvo into the competitive automobile industry. However, in a rare lapse of judgment, Honda was convinced that air-cooled motors like the one in the 600s held the future. When his R&D team proved that water cooling provided greater potential for performance and better emissions controls, he was wise enough to relent control to the younger generation of engineers.

Honda’s 600cc motor may have seemed tiny, but in Japan an even smaller N360 was sold. As part of the kei class, these cars fulfilled a government mandate for automakers to provide a People’s Car for the unwashed masses. The rear-mounted dual-pot motor propelled the Subaru 360 (left) with just 25 horsepower, but drove the egg-shaped, bow-legged runabout to iconic status in Japan. The Mazda R360’s rear V-twin generated just 16hp and served as the company’s first venture into four-wheeled cars, following the manufacture of three-wheeled motorcycles with pickup beds and before that, corks.

If you’re in the city of angels, stop by and see these minuscule but mighty wonders for yourself, along with the rest of the Petersen’s vast collection. The microcars exhibit goes from June 23, 2007 to Feburary 3, 2008.

Perhaps Ming the Merciless would have been more successful in his fight against Flash Gordon if, instead of being an evil Asian caricature, he was actually Tim Mings and had a fleet of Honda N600 and Z600s at his disposal.

We’ve always wanted to visit Mings, owner of Merciless Mings: The World’s Largest Honda 600 Shop, but have never had the honor. Thanks to Jalopnik, which has been on a microcar mission in SoCal these days, we now know what we’ve been missing.

The efficient, front-wheel-drive cars may seem more conventional than other early Hondas like the S- or T-series, but Honda still imbued them with their fair share of borrowed motorcycle technology. The Ns started out as 360cc kei cars but only the 600s were imported to the US starting in 1969, the first Hondas officially imported here. Cars like the S roadsters or Brian Baker’s 1964 T500F pickup were brought over privately or ended up here by chance. The sportier (a relative term) Z came about in 1970, after the N’s run ended but used the same 36hp motor, but in true Honda genealogy the N-series was succeeded by the Life, which later spawned its own offspring like the Life Step Van.

It would have been easy to underestimate Hondas based on the diminutive stature of these early imports, but then again, no one thought a Speedo-sporting 1930’s superhero would look funny in retrospect either.

Click here to read about Jalopnik’s visit to planet Mongo.

The Honda Civic of legendary pinstriper, cartoonist and father of the Rat Fink, Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, has come out of hiding and is for sale on eBay. Though Roth was a hugely influential figure in the Kustom hot rod culture of the 1960s he owned several Hondas including a N600 and pair of Civics, one of which is the car you see here.

The cars served as Roth’s daily drivers/work vans/canvases when was a painter for various movie producers and Knott’s Berry Farm. He often took the cars to hot rod events with a trailer in tow to sell his now-famous Rat Fink gear.

This Civic comes complete with tow hitch to accomodate said trailer and, according to the owner, Roth’s original pinstriping, paint drips and circles left by his cans. Artsy types love this stuff because it’s like being in the studio of a great master, and for Roth, the car was both his studio and his canvas.

Roth’s other Civic now resides in Japan, and the N600 is owned by a collector but was recently on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.

Thanks to Autoblog for the tip!