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9 Facts About the Original Honda Sports Cars - S500/600/800
By Bryan Wood

Vanishing Point

Great seeing an article on the earliest beginnings of the "S Series" cars. The S500 is such a rare car, even in Japan, that makes them a challenge to source parts and pieces. I am fortunate to own a 1964 S500 which is currently undergoing a complete restoration.

Vanishing Point

Even the Toyota Automobile Museum thought enough of the Honda S500 to include it in their prestigious collection.

トヨタ博物館｜ホンダ S500 AS280型 / Honda S500 Model AS280

Old racer

In 1967 I was racing a Formula 2 Brabham, & a lady racing enthusiast used to loan me her S600 when ever I was in her city. As you can imagine, any lady who actually bought one of these, new in 67 was a pretty special lady.

She used to like me taking her for a flat out run through the twisty back roads. The handling was good for it's day, but not really equal to that engine. They had a moderately heavy fly wheel, to help overcome the lack of low down torque, so you had to take your time in the first to second change, from high revs, so short shifting from first to second was best.

These were very minor faults, & the car was the most fun I had had to that date in a road car.

windhund116

Neat little cars. Be fun to restore one!

RFW

I owned a 1967 S600, and drive it daily for 19 years (1967 to 1986), and 90+ thousand miles. In the mid/late 1960s, Honda exported quite a few S600s to Canada and there was a dealer for them in Vancouver for years. I just LOVED this little car! Fitting it with radial tires, cured the squirelly handling that resulted from the dual, sealed chain drives at the rear (Sharp right angle turns, taken at speed were, shall we say, umm... "interesting"!). The S800 cured this by getting rid of the chain drive rear end, and replacing it with a well-located live axle (coil-over shocks, 2 trailing arms each side, and a lateral-locating panhard rod).

This car sounded like a cross between a gas turbine and a crazed sewing machine! It had a roller bearing crank (with rollers on the con rod big ends, too), four constant-velocity carbs, nest-of-snakes headers with dual exhausts, all aluminum engine with cast iron "wet" sleeves, and DOHC. Red line was 9500RPM, but would easily rev to 10,500.

But what fun!... even though over the years, I rebuilt the motor twice, replaced the synchros once, and replaced the crown/pinion gearset twice (broken pinion tooth).

At one time (around 1970), parts were cheap.... pistons were $5.50 each, Clutch Slave Cylinder assembly with piston and seal was $5.50, brake cylinder assembly with pistons and seals was $6.50 each. and the crown and pinion rear end gearset was $29.00 complete. But as time went on, parts gradually got more expensive, or simply unavailable! My second crown and pinion in 1980 or so cost about $300.00! So repairs gradually became more and more impractical

But what a fun car it was!

superbike123

It was very informative!

RFW

Thanks.... Nowadays, I own a 2004 S2000, but as great a car that the S2000 is (and it really is!), somehow it just ain't the same as my S600! Among other things, the tiny S600 coupe that I owned actually had more room inside than the S2000 has. I'm a tall guy and even with the seat all the way back, the steering wheel is still way to close. The tiny S600's steering wheel was a more reasonable distance away from my chin. No idea how they did it! A friend has a fully restored S600 convertible and fortunately, I have "visitation rights"!

EastS2k

what is up with fake accounts created in '17 posting replies to dry admin threadS?