1965 Honda S600 Convertible

By the late 1950's Honda had a proven record for manufacturing and racing fine motorcycles. It was only a natural progression that around 1958 Mr. Soichiro Honda put together a young engineering team to design and build a sporty automobile. Yoshio Nakamura, project leader for the Honda Sports Series and manager of Honda's first F1 team, joined the company. Honda launched an open, two-seat sports car called the S500 at the 1962 Tokyo Motor Show. Honda developed their aluminum four cylinder DOHC engine using a crankshaft rotating on needle roller bearings. The 531cc engine had 44 horsepower at 8500 rpm's and weighed in at 1500 lbs. In 1964 changes were again made to the body and an increase to 606cc's with 57 horsepower at 8500 rpm's.