Japanese Nostalgic Car

The T360/500 trucks and the S500/600/800 sports cars demonstrated Honda’s racing pedigree and engineering genius. Mr Honda’s philosophy was that if you perfected every individual area of a car, then the overall car would be perfect, and the public would love it. A typical engineer’s philosophy, amply demonstrated in Honda’s production cars which had engine technology more akin to an F1 car at the time. And yet they didn’t really work as a package and worse…they didn’t really sell very well.

Mr Honda’s car division got a reprieve when the N360 Kei-car of 1967 (above) proved to be a sales winner. A simple FWD minicar, using a single cam two cylinder motor, it was well accepted by the Japanese buying public.

But for Honda to become a full fledged car manufacturer, Mr Honda knew that they would have to produce a proper, full size family car. Not just a kei-car which would only work in Japan, but a world-class sedan that could be sold anywhere. This would be the car simply called the “1300” and with it, Mr Honda would push his engineering philosophy to the limit, and it would bring the friction between Old Man Honda and his young management team to a head, changing the fate of the company forever.

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Moving right along from the T360 and T500 trucks, Honda’s next foray into four-wheeled vehicles was the S500 roadster. It should be remembered that at this point Honda was already a massively successful international motorcycle manufacturer, mainly as a result of the Honda Cub: a cheap, simple, robust 50cc bike that is made to this very day and is the most popular vehicle ever made.

So the S500 was as much a treat for company founder Soichiro as anything else, and its sporty front-engined, rear wheel drive convertible layout predates the S2000 by some 35 years. Mr Honda was quite the anglo-phile when it came to cars, and so the S600 displays more upright influences from British sports cars of the day, rather than the more svelte and womanly curves of 60s Italian sportsters.

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For a great many car manufacturers, their DNA has roots in the distant past. It is hard to imagine Ford without the Mustang and GT40, it’s equally hard to imagine Nissan without the 240Z and C10 Skyline GT-R, and of course Mazda wouldn’t be the same without its long and proud history of rotary engined cars that stretches right back to the 60s.

But what of Honda? To most enthusiasts, an “old school” Honda is a mid 80s Integra. Think back and you might be able to conjure a mental image of the ground-breaking 1st Gen Civic, but that would be it for most people. And that’s a shame, because there are many interesting Hondas made before the Civic, and an examination of them tells you a lot about why the company is where it is today.

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