Back when I lived in Los Angeles, a city that has one of the greatest carscapes of any city in, hell I’m going to say it – the world – I used to navigate through my neighborhood by a mental map of the interesting cars around me. At my own home I had a Beetle and a Reliant Scimitar, so I was helping out if anyone else did this, and in a mile or so radius around my house there were Checker Marathons and a Citroën SM and some Fiat X1/9s, a Lancia, and more. It was surprisingly varied and rich! Included in this was the interesting car closest to me, a Honda Z600 Coupé.
The little yellow Z600 was just around the corner from my house, and sat in a driveway, immobile. I never actually saw it drive or even move, but I walked by to look at it often, as I was smitten, I talked to the owner about selling it multiple times, and they always said they would think about it, but nothing ever happened. They didn’t mind me coming by to peer at it, though, and occasionally squeeze the big rubber “scuba mask” bezel around the rear hatch which was very satisfying to squeeze.
I wanted to bite it, but I resisted. It wasn’t easy.
I mean, look at that incredible mass of black rubber! Who wouldn’t want to bite it? Also, dude, stop fighting over that frisbee or whatever. Just let her have it.
The Z600 (and it’s smaller-engined counterpart, the z360) were only in production between 1970 and 1974, but went through an interesting number of changes during that time, mostly because that was the fateful time in Honda’s history when the transition from air-cooled engines, a favorite of Honda founder Soichiro Honda, to liquid-cooled engines, which his engineers preferred, happened.
That’s why the Zs had two different grille designs over its life, and behind that grille were two different sorts of inline-twin transverse engines, both making 36 hp, but the earlier one cooled by air, the later by water. This period was a huge deal for Honda, with Soichiro Honda having to admit his role was no longer as an engineer, but the CEO.
Also fascinating about the Z600 is how it came in a version with a fixed (if pop-out) rear side glass like the car above, but you could get versions that were pillar-less hardtops, like the one in the topmost image or this one here, which features the only example of a double-window-length rain gutter I’ve ever seen:
That one above is a later production Z600, which you can tell because it lacks the lower spare tire compartment door seen on earlier cars, which I love.
You can see the spare tire compartment in the middle left there, along with other details like the foglamp-style front indicators, similar designs of which would later show up on the earliest Civics:
The Z600 was quite advanced in many ways, with an engine that would rev up to 9000 RPM! The packaging was clever and, while tiny, was fairly roomy.
The only strange thing, to my eyes at least, is the almost crude rear suspension with those big leaf springs. I mean, they certainly work, they just feel a bit out of place on a car like this.
Another fun detail are the door handles, which seem to just be Honda 1300 door handles rotated 90°. And I think those, rotated back to horizontal, would end up on the Civic later.
This, along with the N600 “sedan” version, were some of the earliest widely-exported Hondas, and were still sold at Honda motorcycle dealers, since a real Honda car dealership network wouldn’t appear until the Civic hit the scene in 1973. I really like this period of Honda, where they seemed like a company willing to experiment and try some exciting things. We tend to think of Honda as a rational, safe bet now, cars for people with reasonable minds, but things weren’t always like that.
Also, that woman is doing such a clean and tidy job of painting on that car! Even with that dude all up in her face. I’m impressed.
In Eugene, Oregon there used to be a Mexican restaurant that had two parked in the front of their business between the restaurant and the street as… Decoration.
If you owned one, you could honestly claim to drive a “hemi”.
My father retired out of an Air Force assignment at the Pentagon to take a job with Rockwell in Downey CA. The Space Shuttle hadn’t yet flown, but I specifically remember my excitement over the diverse automobiles there – with the Z600 at the top of my list. While I never got to bite or even nibble on one, I did go on to owning many different Hondas over the decades.
We used to call them the Hondas with the TV windshield back in France, on account of the shape of the rear windshield.
For all the people here who seem to be absolutely certain they will ever need to tow something, so they need a BOF truck to commute in, note that this thing somehow got that catamaran to the beach.
This is not something I want to know how well I can fit into the driver’s seat.
I’ve never even seen one in person but I’d love to try and contort myself in.
Back when I lived in Los Angeles, I owned a green Z600. Traded my N600 in on it. Selling the Z was a major mistake, one of many in my automotive life.
Both 600s were absolutely reliable, and amazingly well-built for the sub-$2K list prices. At a time when cars costing more had drum brakes and rubber floor mats, they had front discs and actual carpeting. The latter wore rather quickly, however.
Put loads and loads of miles on both and enjoyed every minute of it, including regular L.A.-San Francisco runs. Both would cruise at ~70, a little better when slipstreaming an 18-wheeler.
BTW: bought the N600 from a Honda motorcycle dealer (the same one who sold my father a Trail 55 and a CB-160) and the “Coupe” — said so right on the C-pillar — from what I believe was an early standalone Honda car dealership.
Some genius must have made a window tint/graphic depicting nose rubber and shocked eyes.
With a goldfish too!
There’s one of these near my house right now, in bright orange! I walk past it with my dog every day, which always puts a smile on my face – once I even ran into it on the freeway about 10 miles from home and it was cruising along at about 65, which I found rather impressive…
“Also, dude, stop fighting over that frisbee or whatever. Just let her have it.”
Its the early 70s so it’s a good guess “letting her have it” is the end goal here.
Back when I lived in Los Angeles, a city that has one of the greatest carscapes of any city in hell
Fixed your extraneous comma.
Kidding! I love LA.
My dad bought a new light blue metallic Civic coupe in 1976 identical to the one in the article here, because he was tired of looking at his Fiat 127 losing its battle with rust (he said he could watch the rust expand daily). Looking at that Civic again in recent times it is nearly impossible to think Honda could make anything smaller than that, but here we are. Is the Z600 a keicar?
Technically the Z600 is not a kei car due to the size of the engine. They had 598cc engines, and at the time, kei cars were limited to 360cc. So the Z360 was a kei car.
Tales of unusual cars in yards reminds me that for several years when I lived in California there was a house with a Nissan Pao in the front yard. Which was extra confounding because such a car would be unregisterable in that state.
I lived in a teeeny town in Eastern Washington a few years ago, and one guy had a yard full of Z600’s & N600/Civics. Should have knocked on his door.
With all those warning signs lit? Be glad you didn’t!
Warning signs are my version of open signs!
Now talk about the S600 convertible. It’s actually pretty good looking!
I still have a distinct memory of me and my dad helping a stranded motorist to push start one of these when I was about 5 years old in Australia.
These were the coolest cars. Hondas were a cheap, reliable, alternative to the VWs way back then.
Been looking for one of these a good while now.
BTW can attest to what fighting over a frisbee can easily lead to.
Especially with a hot chick back then…
…yeah. Getting beat up by a girl.
Man, I did that whole youth thing wrong.
Do I wish that I didn’t immediately understand Jason’s desire to squeeze and even bite the rubber rear window surround on that Honda?
No, not really. 😉
It’s a natural reaction to that sort of stimuli. I often feel the same way about dogs, and sometimes even about certain people. I usually manage to restrain myself though, just out of common courtesy and decorum.
I can’t say the exact year, but my family owned a hardware and housewares store and one day someone from Honda came in and tried selling them on selling Hondas at the store.
Dad has a ’71 Z600, and I remember the first time trying to locate the hood release and having to give up after an embarrassingly long search. Later I found out it’s located on the passenger side of the car, which was interesting/funny to me… Honda moved the steering wheel and pedals to the left side for the American market but drew the line at moving the hood release too.
VW type 181 (the THING in the US when sold in ’73 and ’74) had the hood release in the glovebox. Right below the OH SHIT bar.
Even more impressive is the wheelie that Z600 must have done immediately before coming to rest on the beach blanket. I guess I can’t blame that lady for being startled by such an exuberant arrival, but the guy was just trying to be considerate by avoiding getting any tire tracks near her tanning spot…
Sitting right next to the ocean like that, you can almost hear that car rusting. Too bad, it’s a great blue!
I’ve seen a couple on the east coast when I was young, never got close enough to chew. How much of that hatch is actually rubber? Like the engineers just kept adding till it stopped leaking?
Wow, amazing too that this vehicle must have inspired the weird rear window in the doomed Type 0 saloon!
I haven’t seen even one of these on the road since 1974 when an high school buddy a couple of years ahead of me drove one in college. He was 6’5”. I don’t know how he fit inside. An engineering student, he would extol the Z600’s virtues whenever teased about his tiny ride. He replaced it with a first gen Accord hatchback.
I love this. Also trying to imagine it in traffic next to a F-150.
weird cars make everything better. Growing up there was a family who had a Metropolitan.
OTOH, an F-150 of that era wasn’t as stupidly large. But in today’s traffic? Yeah, probably worse than driving a Smart, which is taller.