Honda's S-Series: Honda's Original Sports Car Solution
By Justin Fort
Ragtops & Roadsters Magazine
Fall 2002
Pages 66-67, 75.



THE HONDA S-SERIES (S360, S500, S600 AND S800) was Honda's first car: utterly a sports car, of obvious road-going merit and worthy of history's acknowledgement. Why? S-Series development and production represented what was right with Honda and Japanese automotive manufacturers as a whole in the early 1960s. A simple design dictum, well targeted product, unfettered ingenuity and a short path from concept to reality led to the production of a nimble, spry and rev-happy little do-gooder that put Honda on the four-wheel map. Though U.S. emissions standards felled plans for its stateside introduction and led to the downfall of the model, Japanese and European successes with the S-Series were impressive, and spoke volumes of Honda's future. After all, this was Honda's first attempt to mass-market something sporty with four wheels.

At the time of the S-Series' inception, Honda was known for its motorcycles. Borne of Japan's post-war economic surge and combined with Soichiro Honda's spirit and drive to excel, the company had forged itself into a motorcycle-manufacturing power. At this point, Mr. Honda's gaze wandered to four-wheeled concerns. Once the company's scope had widened beyond the world of two wheels, things like the S-Series were a logical outcome, on par with the quality and performance exhibited by Honda's motorcycles. Another intrinsic facet of Mr. Honda's ideology was motorsport, and from the word "go" the S500, 600 and 800 were run in sports car series all over Japan, and subsequently Europe, with fine results. An early gray-market S600 was run for a class win by Jack Brabham and Denny Hulme at the Nurburgring.

Honda Motor Company's sojourn into passenger car manufacturing was fueled by Soichiro Honda's notion that the Japanese people would embrace a "sportier" option when shopping for personal vehicles that conformed with the government's small-displacement tax breaks. The S800 platform was initially conceived as the S360, penned by a band of young Honda engineers to take advantage of the aforementioned tax break for vehicles with minimalist-displacement engines. The motor was a 356 cc inline-four, mounted at a 45-degree angle to port, longitudinally. As was Honda's form, the straight-four made its power up high -- 33 bhp at 9000 rpm. The 356 cc four and all its future variants were apparently as reliable as Honda products today, even at those excruciating engine speeds, but regular tuning was a main course of the recommended maintenance diet anyway.

While still in prototype form, complications arose with certain Japanese bureaucrats' "interpretation" of the tax codes about which the car was designed (and not in Honda's favor). The S360 was thusly shelved while still in prototype form, and a slightly larger (displacement and dimensionally) version, the S500, was released instead. Tax breaks be damned. Though it was not the first four-wheel vehicle sold to the public by Honda (it had released a small pickup/panel van which used a motor similar to the S360s), the S500 was its first car, and a sporty one at that. It was well sewn together, nimble and tossable; the quad-carbed production motor's 44 bhp (from 531 cc) peaking at 8000 rpm. The S500 came box-stock with drum brakes on all four corners, all-independent suspension (torsion bar-front, diagonal coil over-rear), and the very motorcycle-esque chain-driven rear drive. With an oil-bath chain on each side, onto which housings were mounted the rear coil-overs, the chain-drive swing arms thusly functioned as one of each rear axle's two trailing arms. The S500 could only be ordered as a convertible, though a removable fiberglass hardtop was an option. It weighed about 1500 pounds soaking wet.

Sales of the S500 were enough to keep Honda moving forward with the S-Series plan, counting 1363 sold from October '63 through September '64, when the 606 cc, 57 hp S600 took its place. The S600 was first available in March of '64, and the 606 cc-four made the S-Series platform much more driveable, with fewer revs required to get around at a proper pace. With the S600, Honda offered consumers the option of selecting either the convertible/removable hardtop or a fastback two-door (which followed the S600 convertible to market about a year later). Smart enough to stick with a reliable formula, Honda changed little of the S-Series plan beyond the available fixed-head and enlarged engine capacities, though a version badged SM600 was an option for both body styles, replete with standard touches like a lighter, radio, quick-release passenger seat and exclusive logos. By far the best-selling S-Series, Honda sold between 13,000 and 14,000 copies of the two body styles while it was on the market (the exact count has been disputed by various sources). Some S600s began to appear offshore in the U.K. and Australia, even though the S600 had not originally been intended for export. Production S600s began to appear in Europe with left-hand drive, because Honda soon noticed its small displacement was agreeable to the tax codes in some European states.



The penultimate stage of S-Series production was the S800. Released to the consumer in 1966, this was another iteration of its now-recognizable evolution -- larger displacement (and all good things that come with it), slight cosmetic alterations and mechanical updates to match the needs of the small-sports marketplace. There were 791 ccs to play with now, churning out a remarkably improved 70 hp at 8000 rpm. Of efficiency concerns, the 791 cc motor may have been better suited to the S-Series than the 606 cc iteration -- it made more power and reportedly delivered superior mileage, regularly seeing 35 mpg. By far the biggest change to Honda's S layout was the appearance of a solid rear axle, abandoning the occasionally finicky, always audible yet ever-charming chain-drive powertrain. The live axle was coil-sprung and radius rod/Panhard swung, and on its own cured many of the S-Series' previous handling quirks. About 1000 early production S800s were built with the proprietary chain drive, but its limited torque-handling capacity coupled with other preexisting limitations to make the setup obsolete. These chain drive S800s have become the darlings of the S-Series collector clique.

As the S-Series evolved from S500 to S800, so did its features. Sound insulation and things like a cigarette lighter, heater and radio slowly raised it from stripped-down sports car to a properly outfitted one. Improved manufacturing and component selection reduced chassis and driveline buzz, and a bigger fuel tank increased cruise range. Honda took a hard look at the chain-drive drivetrain and its motorcycle-derivative arrangement and weird dynamics. The rear of the car would hike up in the air under hard acceleration, and peg leg maneuvers left the driver without any motive power being applied to the ground. It was a novel idea that had grown long in the tooth.

Overall opinion, at least on behalf of the British and Japanese media, rated the live-axle S800 a univeral success. It had grown to be a well received British-sports fighter, but a potential new audience was on the horizon. Several modifications were included in a mid-generation S800 redesign with particular plans for the American marketplace. What was to be the S800M had to satisfy U.S.-spec safety and design curriculum, so flush door handles, safety glass, U.S.- particular external lighting and dual-circuit brakes were included for a '68 model-year release. An exceptional set of disc brakes was made standard in front shortly after introduction of the live axle combo, and it is frequently noted that under heavy braking the S800 stopped better than most of its contemporaries. As high-revving engines are dirtier by nature, the S800M's carburetion was leaned out as best possible to placate the American hydrocarbon-emission standards. All was for naught, though, as the engine design could not be cleaned up enough without burying its enjoyable and necessary high-rpm capacity. So tolled the bell: the S-Series' momentum had come to pass. Somewhere between 11,400 and 11,600 S800s were built from 1966 to '70, none officially making it across either pond to the U.S.A.

Impressions of the S800 driving experience paint it in a fashion similar to much of the small-displacement roadster set. Michael Knowling, writing for autospeed.com, said it completely. "On the track, the little Hondas showed large amounts of understeer in the braking area with milder understeer with power application at the apex. But a slight throttle lift off accompanied by a flick of the quick-ratio rack and pinion steering let you oversteer the car's 6'7" (2 metre) wheelbase in any situation. Most contemporary road tests came to the same conclusion -- its handling was predictable and enjoyable, though the ride was firm."

Honda "Sport" (S360, S500, S600, S800) development was easily linked to the basic tenets of Honda's motorcycle origin, relying on identifiable cornerstone elements like high-rpm power from small displacement, chain drive (at first), sharp handling, liquid shifting and the car's Lilliputian dimensions. Direct lines can also be drawn from the overall quality of the car's execution and virtue as a product of Soichiro Honda's vision to his success as a manufacturer as a whole. At its peak, the S800 -- Honda's original car -- was a product everyone could admire.

Special thanks to AutoSpeed (www.autospeed.com), the Honda S800 Sports Car Club (www.honda-s800-club.freeserve.co.uk), Honda Sports Registry (www.hondasportsregistry.com), the S-Series Registry (http://216.86.210.95/Sreg/index.html) and Jim Walker's Honda (www.jimwalker.com). There's lots of neat S-Series stuff to be found on these sites.

 

Excellent article. I've read dozens of write-ups on the early S-series and this one is by "far" the most informative and complete. I learned lots of new stuff.

S2000 Driver, thanks for posting it. While Honda "Sports" may not have the history of a Jag, MG, or Ferrari -- it does have an interesting past and its great to know the S2000 keeps to its origins.

 

Mmmmm. Chain drive. Thanks for the Bump.