Honda S800 - Tiny, 11000 rpm '60s sports car driven!

The Honda S800 was an amazing achievement for a company that had only started making cars a few years prior, its not just very pretty but has an eying that redlines 1t 9000rom and goes all the way to 11,000! Not bad over 50 years ago!

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[rapid]

Early Honda cars are astonishing. I've few hours to study, look, touch & ride the neat white 1973 S600 Touring. And I'm surprised still how refined & well finished was this machine. It looked like designed & built by manufacturer with 3-4 decades of experience, not just few years!

[jimmeltonbradley]

I remember these coming outwhen I was a teenager. I was already a fan of Honda bikes. This and cars like the N600 were just magic to me. I loved all that insane revving.

[asa]

Our next door neighbour came home with one of those in the early 70s it was FANTASTIC . I’ve still got photographs of it and only a very very few people can guess what it is when you show them the picture

[pauldavies]

Matt is a lucky man privileged to drive and us to see it why dont Honda make a modern version of it keeping everything looking as good as this

[kevinnye]

What a charming little car Matt and a great survivor, great styling for mid 1960s

[BriMackey-wpvj]

Pretty is the word, what a little stunner this car is. Great to see it driven, thanks for a great video.

[captaccordion]

Thanks Mr Furiousdriving for this one. I don't believe that I've ever seen a review on one of these, and I've been aware of them since the 1970's, as a school friend had one. It is quite fascinating. Cheers.

[MrGaryRoberton]

Incredibly rare cars are a challenge to maintain, My neighbor Trev, currently runs a 1970 Toyota Corona, and daily drives it. The paintwork is half gone, but it runs like a sewing machine... and is probably as powerful... Cheers....

[grayfool]

Honda made some very interesting and cool cars back then. One of my parents neighbours ran the local Honda dealership so always had the latest cars. One of my favourites was the Z Coupe. Anyone still got one of them?

[charliemansonUK]

Back in the 80's a lad at college had an 800 coupe and I used to drive him to the pub and back every Thursday and Saturday, got to be driven above 6500 rpm to wake it up really 7500 to 8000rpm to get the best.
Rare back then, and I've always hankered for one since then.

[keithhooper]

After many years driving Honda Actys, now driving Piaggio Porter truck and Daihatsu Copen car.So, over forty years of "kei" driving.

[Bozzzish]

The wheel base on the S800 is shorter than the original Mini. The video doesn't quite show how small these cars are, should have parked it next to a Modern Honda. I've had my Coupe for near on 20 years. Did you notice how big the transmission tunnel is? I've got a 6 Speed S2000 gearbox in mine without having to cut the tunnel, oh and the gearbox is attached to a S2000 engine as well :)

[clivewright]

What a well engineered car for its day. Better quality than some bl sports cars.

[stevew]

This is what motoring is all about, better than what they dish out today.

[alexandermathar]

There's this anecdote that an S800 engine was dynoed in Braunschweig, Germany, and it destroyed the dyno at 12000 RPM !

[PB]

Lovely. I had a mate who had one back in the day.

[hadtopicausername]

Spirou is the first thing that comes to mind :)

[markkinnon]

I recall chasing one around Castle Combe circuit in the early 90s in my Opel Manta A series.

[rogerking]

If you want to get a least a partial idea of what happened to the British car industry, you should read Geoffrey Healey's book "More Healeys, Frogeyes, Sprites and Midgets" in which he describes an S800 they tested (as a potential rival to the Midget/Sprite as) as a "so-called sports car from Japan" before describing its handling as "diabolical". I'm sure he didn't realise it at the time, but complacency and an arrogant sense of superiority would eventually kill nearly all of our indigenous manufacturers.

[Dhira]

What a privilege to be able to drive such a rare car
So nice to see a non European sports car with a reve motorbike type engine
Just wondering though has any of the chain driven ones survived?