Last night I was in the chat room and we started talking about the cars Honda first brought to the U.S.I remember learning to drive stick in one of these cars back in the early 70's and in my area they were sold at Honda motorcycle shops.There were two models the S600(i think that's the model,looks kinda like a mini) and another model I can't remember but it came out at the same time and was a coupe with a small back window that opened.I've not seen one of these on the road in many years so I guess most of them went to the bone yard.Anyone know what I'm talking about and where I can see pics?

 

Is this what you're looking for? I use to drive the sedan version (red) in 1972...Yeah, I'm old .

http://www.xs4all.nl/~mjs/hondak.html

http://civic.vtec.net/civic-pc/600info.html

 

That's the car nascar,thanks....that car was so easy to learn "stick" in.I recall the shifter was mounted on the dash.....guess that makes me old too.

 

Yeah, those were the good old days when you only had to buy two spark plugs for a tuneup

 

Which car was it that the whole front end opened up??? A guy that lived two houses down from me learned to drive in one of them. It had the shifter in the dash also. His dad was a used car dealer and was forever bringing home "oddball" cars......his next car was a plain vanilla toyota Corolla station wagon. with front seats that laid all the way back into the rear seat. His Girlfriends mother wouldn't let her go out with him unless he borrowed his mom's Falcon.....

 

I know the car you're talking about but don't know the name.I'm sure it was an import,wide in the front and narrow at the rear and when you opened the"front end"to get in the headlights and the steering wheel were mounted on the door.The car was so strange I'm sure someplace across the country there's some club that restores them.

 

My dad told me a story way back when that apparently some of the first Hondas to hit our shores were delivered to San Francisco. As the story goes, these simple, small, CHAIN-DRIVE autos couldn't make it up the hills from the port into the city... Thus, they were rolled back down to the boat and sent back to Japan...

If there's any truth to this, they've certainly come a long way!

 

The car you guys are thinking about that opened from the front was a BMW Isetta. Here's a link http://www.cqql.net/bmw.htm

 

The open in the front car is a BMW Isetta.

 

That's it alright,had no idea it was a BMW and for some reason I was thinking the headlights were mounted on the doors but I see i was wrong on that.That is one very strange looking automobile.