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Honda N600 review: Honda's first car in America should be part of 50 year anniversary celebration

Fifty years ago, no one, not even Honda, expected the little 50cc Supercub stepthrough motorbike to turn America motorcycling upside down. History shows that it did. Similarly 10 years later, few believed the 1970 Honda N600 could do the same in the car market. Most Americans thought the new Honda sedan as ridiculously tiny. A Ford Maverick compact was considered a small car. The sub-compact Pinto outweighed the Honda by 700 pounds.

Honda’s second car line was its first official car for America. A handful of Honda’s earlier S-series sports cars had been privately imported, but the N600 was marketed—starting in Hawaii in 1969 and on the West Coast in 1970—by the American Honda organization that had done so with motorcycles, Honda’s first mass-produced sedan had debuted in Japan as a 360cc model in the spring o 1967. Unlike the S-sportster, the N-360 used front-wheel drive. Front-drive was still uncommon and the N-360 was considered a first in Japan, but Honda favored the system’s packaging efficiency and handling stability. There was never another rear-wheel-drive Honda until the NSX.

A transverse, air-cooled twin-cylinder engine was mounted at the very front of the N-360. It made 31-hp, which was good for72 mph if you were patient. With more oomph than its rivals in Japan, the car was a hit. Honda was encouraged to add 400cc and 600cc versions. The 400 seems a mystery, as the extra 50cc couldn’t have done much except to eliminate the tax and parking law advantages Japanese law conferred on the 360. But the bored-and-stroked 600 yielded more horsepower (36 hp) and torque (32 lb-ft) and had a lower redline 6000rpm). These Hondas were deemed suitable to make the trans-Pacific trek.

The Honda N600’s styling was simple, slab-sided and unembellished. Although a four seater, it had only two doors. With only a 78.7-inch wheelbase (the car was a mere 125 inches long overall), it’s hard to see where more doors could fit. The molded plastic trunklid opened to reveal a three cubic foot trunk. Four average0s9zed adults will fit in the N600. The front buckets were thin, though comfortable enough, and the back seat had head= and leg-room enough at least for short trips.

Driving the N600 now, the steering wheel feels fragile and is. The instrument panel has a speedometer calibrated to 100mph, but it is marked with gear/rpm ranges topping out at about 75 mph. It shares the dash with a fuel gauge clustered with four warning lights. A lever below the dash has two positions, “Open” and “shut.” The former position brings in not only warm air from the engine bay, a product of the air-cooled engine), but also, like a speaking tube, engine noise.

Although a three-speed Hondamatic transmission was optional, the standard synchromesh four-speed was better for keeping up with traffic. It has a peculiar shifter: A rod projects from the firewall and links to another rod that pivots in the middle on a bracket below the dash.

One must shift often to stay in the engine’s power band. The twin behaves and looks like a motorcycle’s, the pistons going up and down simultaneously--the exhaust stroke and on one side coincides with the compression on the other, as of course do the intake and power strokes. This gives power pulses at even intervals, but creates the same primary imbalance as does a single cylinder. It simplifies ignition timing, however. The points sited atop the head fire both spark plugs simultaneously, the offside sparking with both intake and exhaust valves (one per each) open. A single-throat side-draft Keihin constant velocity carburetor is mounted behind the engine, and the exhaust headers bend down just behind the grille. An exhaust fan behind and below the engine aids cooling.

The Honda N600’s ride and handling are the best one could expect from 5.20 x 10-inch tires with MacPherson strut front and dead-axle-on-leaf-spring rear suspension. The car’s size makes it nimble and able to leap into parking spaces in a single bound. Brakes are disc front and drums rear.

The price tag for all this was $1,395.

But for 1973, the Honda N600 was gone. An exemption from emissions requirements for sub-800cc cars ended after 1972, and with smog controls, Honda’s twin stood to lose horsepower and fuel economy. New bumper rules would increase weight and cost.

The Honda Civic was devised as a response to all those difficulties and is generally credited as Honda’s first major automotive success. But the N600 wasn’t a failure. Small beginnings, certainly, though Honda learned American automobile marketing, established an organization and founded an enterprise that would later sell the most popular car in America. The Honda N600 was the unexpected acorn from which grew an unexpected oak.

 

Illustration: 1971 Honda N600, photo by John Matras. Special thanks to Ken Weidner.