Headquartered in Tokyo and having raced in Formula One in a white-and-red livery, Honda is as Japanese as a Samurai riding a giant anime cat-but its meteoric post-war rise owes almost as much to California as to its homeland. It's at the American Honda Motor Company's Torrance headquarters, just south of Los Angeles, where the company tells the story of its rapid Stateside expansion through 84 cars, a clutch of motorbikes, a handful of generators and a model of a jet aeroplane.
Just one year after launching the milestone Super Cub motorcycle - and before it had built a single four-wheeled vehicle - Honda set up its first overseas subsidiary on West Pico Street, Los Angeles, in 1959. Its advertising campaign - 'You meet the nicest people on a Honda' didn't just sell tens of thousands of motorbikes to Americans, it changed the genre's image, with college students, housewives and delivery drivers getting on 'bikes for the first time.
A 1965 Honda S600 starts the four-wheeler story in the Collection Hall. The original S500 was never officially sold in the USA, but was Honda's debut passenger car. The first that did make it there, a 1970 N600, sits alongside.
Its 45bhp air-cooled 598cc motor, good for 40mpg, was impressive in 1970, but few Americans were interested in the superbly packaged little city car. Honda motorcycles, not cars, provided the first foothold in the USA.
That all changed with the twin shocks of the 1970 Clean Air Act and the 1973 Fuel Crisis. Honda's 1975 update to the Civic introduced the first engine to meet US emissions standards without the need for exhaust-strangling equipment, the 'Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion' E-series. With it, Honda's sales volumes surged, as the Civic proved far more efficient and reliable than the cars of an American auto industry that had previously never cared about fuel economy.
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Denne historien er fra November 2024-utgaven av Classic & Sports Car.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Mick WALSH
'Had someone said that this worn-looking titan would win the most famous old-car event, we would have laughed'
ALFA ROMEO STELVIO QF
Rewriting the rulebook on what an SUV can do, and how it can make you feel
FLOATING INTO THE FUTURE
Citroën's DS-replacing CX was at a cutting edge so sharp it still looks fresh today, and it had the drive to match - as five superb survivors reveal
"It's a car for posing in really"
Broadcaster Michael Buerk reflects on more than three decades with his beloved Jaguar E-type S1 3.8 fixed-head coupé
HONDAS DECK THE HALL
The Japanese firm's Los Angeles collection is now on public display for the first time in two decades
ABSOLUTELY buzzing
Honda's Si Civics brought agile, cheap fun to motorists long before the Type R name got anywhere near a hatchback
THE FEMININE TOUCH
In 1955, General Motors styling guru Harley Earl brought 11 talented women into the male-dominated world of automotive design. What was their lasting impact?
Out on a limb
Panther's innovative Solo 2 was something completely different, both for its maker and the sports car market
Restyles with substance
Panther Westwinds blended a passion for pre-war designs with modern-era mechanical usability and remarkably fine coachbuilding
Dead ringers
The Maserati Kyalami and De Tomaso Longchamp share much, having emerged from the same stable, but are poles apart at heart