This week’s find from Taizo is a sharp red Honda S600 roadster — soft top and tonneau cover fitted, water-cooled inline-four DOHC engine under the hood, and roughly 69,000 km on the odometer. It is a tiny car with an outsized engineering story: built by people who, until this car, had only ever designed motorcycles.
History
The S600 was part of Honda’s S-series (S500 → S600 → S800), launched in 1964 — the same year Honda entered Formula 1 — and built through 1966. It was Honda’s first mass-production passenger car and its first vehicle exported to Europe (it was never officially sold in the United States). Honda built 11,284 roadsters and a rare coupe variant (badged SM600 from March 1965), of which only around 1,800 were made. The S600 was replaced by the S800, which kept the same basic formula but eventually swapped the S600/S800’s chain final drive for a conventional propeller shaft and rigid axle on later cars.
What made the S-series remarkable is who built it: Honda’s motorcycle engineers designed it, and it shows. The result is less a shrunken sports car and more a motorcycle engine and drivetrain wrapped in a tidy open two-seat body.
Engine
The S600 uses Honda’s AS285E engine: a 606cc, water-cooled inline-four with DOHC, mounted at a 45-degree lean. Bore and stroke are 54.4mm x 65mm with a 9.5:1 compression ratio, and — in a detail that still surprises people — each cylinder gets its own carburetor, four in total. Output is rated at 57 PS at 8,500 rpm, with multiple sources agreeing on that figure, and the engine can safely rev to roughly 11,000 rpm thanks to a motorcycle-style crankshaft running on needle roller bearings rather than conventional plain bearings.
Final drive is by chain rather than a conventional differential: each rear wheel has its own oil-bath chain case, and that chain case doubles as the trailing arm for a fully independent rear suspension — a direct transplant of motorcycle thinking into a car chassis.
Wheels and Fitment: What We Could Not Verify
This car wears chrome dome hub caps with no visible aftermarket wheel — they appear to be factory-style 13-inch steel wheels, with period tire size 5.20-13 (4PR) confirmed across multiple sources. We looked for a confirmed bolt circle diameter and could not find one we’d trust: the only figure we came across was a single Japanese personal blog claiming “130mm, 5-bolt (same as Porsche),” with no supporting documentation and no corroboration elsewhere. We are not publishing that figure. We also could not confirm from documentation whether this specific car’s hub caps are original Honda parts or a well-matched reproduction/replacement — they look correct for the era, but we are not asserting originality without a source.
Trivia
- The S600 launched the same year Honda made its F1 debut (1964) — the road car and the race program share an engineering generation.
- It was Honda’s first production passenger car, full stop, and the company’s first car exported to Europe.
- The coupe variant is genuinely rare: about 1,800 units against 11,284 roadsters.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Honda S600
- hondas600.com: Specifications
- autoevolution: Honda S600 (1964)
- Silodrome: Honda S600
- Shannons Club: Honda S600 and S800
Sourcing wheels or parts for a Honda S600, S800, or another classic JDM roadster? Browse our current stock, shipped direct from Japan, at JP-Time.Club.