Honda S600 Coupe- 1966

Honda Motor Co. is one of the greatest success stories of the post war motor industry. Soichiro Honda began making piston rings for the aircraft industry in the late 1930s. The flourishing factory was completely destroyed by bombing during WWII.  In 1946, he started a new business from scratch making motor-assisted bicycles. His twelve workers built 50cc 2-stroke engines tuned to use raw pine resin fuel–all that was available at the time. By 1958, Honda was the first motorcycle maker to sell more than one million machines in a year, and by 1962, the world’s largest manufacturer of motorcycles. This was also the year they introduced cars. The S600 was the first car Honda sold in Europe; it was not officially imported to the United States. It was offered as a convertible (weighing 1,576 pounds) or a coupe (the extra sheet metal added 33 pounds.)