early 70's Honda "micro" compact
 

* Back in the early 70's Honda made a very small car powered by a 750CC (?) motorcycle drivetrain. It didn't catch on and was discontinued after a couple of model years. Does anyone know the model name or nomenclature? I wouldn't be surprised if there are still some around.

they were called a 600 .i knew two guys that had them.and i think one of em still has his.i'll have to check it out.i know they had like 10 inch tires and they are hell to find.

Here you go.

Click on the attached link and look at the engine bay. It would be neat to drop a Hyabusa engine in there. I would hate to have a wreck in one though
:(.

I had one, back in the early 80's. A Honda N600 - mine was a "sedan", with a dinky rear seat. The coupe was tinier still.

Engine was air-cooled, and 650CC. I always heard it was a motorcycle engine, and based strictly on looks that makes sense.

The thing was actually pretty fun. Faster than a VW bug, but certainly no powerhouse. They had a nasty habit of chewing up some rubber component in the upper end - a timing chain tensioner, if memory serves. That's what finally did mine in.

I used to love to mess with this Corvette driving pr!ck at the junior college I was attending at the time. The parking lot close to class always filled up early, and the dork would park sideways, taking up two spaces. But the N600 could fit anywhere...I took great delight, in parking 2" off his driver's side door, in the "half spot" he left.

The tables were turned when cruising to Berkeley to score some....uh, stuff. :D I learned quickly to take a companion along...more often than not, I'd return to the car to have it sitting sideways in a parking spot, with no chance of moving the thing under it's own power. Two young guys could lift the rear of the car up, to get it pointing in the right direction again.

Ahh...memories.

I had forgotten all about those things! Nice flashback.

Here is one on ebay (handyman special) http://cgi.liveauctions.ebay.com/11-1971-HONDA-600-COUPE_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ28193QQihZ022QQitemZ350012276717QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW#la-image-1

(there are a few interesting cars offered by that outfit...that Saab is unusual)

A quick fixerupper.:eek:

I had a 71 model 600 that I managed to keep running for about 6 years. Sold it in 1980 or so. Pretty neat little cars...front disk brakes, rack & pinion steering, mcpherson strut front suspension...

Hell yeah! Here's one on a slightly smaller chassis. Talk about power to weight ratio!:D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xv76qiJFJg

* N600. That sounds familiar. I think the orange/butterscotch color, in the side-view photo, was the most common (popular) color.
* I don't think we're that far away from $5 fuel in the US. Gasoline was more than $6 a gallon in Europe years ago. And with China and India ramping up their industry and consumer demand, it's hard to see where fuel price will level off now. A little "toy" car that gets 50-70mpg is beginning to sound reasonable, particularly if it's a temporary remedy until new fuel and manufacturing technologies get settled. If someone could do a carbon fiber, E-Class size, electric car with a new-technology battery for under $20K, he would probably take over the number one spot from Microsoft (or is it Exxon).
* That handyman special on eBay looks like it needs a magician, not a handyman. By the time you'd fixed that up, you could have bought a new Smart Car from Mercedes. You know how those rehabs go. Once you get started, you can't just leave it alone and drive it with problems. I hear Mercedes is going to base-price the Smart Car around $12K, when they're introduced this year (or next?).

* R Leo, under your avatar, which looks like a photo of a bulldozer, you write "erhaltene Planierraupe?". I'm trying to figure out what that means. A "Planierraupe" is a bulldozer but "erhaltene" means received or awarded. And that doesn't make much sense. Was this dozer a gift? Help me with my German.

I think the original 600 sports car is pretty quick for its size....and now becoming pretty collectible. I thought that although the engines were motorcycle related the ones in the cars were not actually the same as the motorcycle engines.

IIRC the little sports car sported roller bearings and would rev to about 9 or 10K rpm.

Tom W

Has a long hood compared to its rear.. does that make it a pony car? :)

When I had my 600, there were a lot already consigned to the junkyards...that would have been 1975-1976 timeframe.

600 memories...

• The coupes had a cable driven tach so I bought the parts out of a junkyard car (gauge, cable, cam and fittings on the head) to retrofit my sedan with them so I'd have a tach. Seems that it redlined at about 12k.
  
• You could do 'bat turns' by whipping the wheel one way and grabbing a handfull of e-brake. I misjudged one night, tagged the curb and and bent the living ***** out of the rear axle where the spindle was welded to the axle. When I got home that night, I parked that car so my folks wouldn't see the wheel canted inwards and the next morning, hightailed it to the junkyard to yank a new rear axle. IIRC, it took about 15 minutes to pull it and another 30 to swap the bent one for the replacement. The parental units never were the wiser.
  
• I could drop the engine (it came out the bottom) in about 30-40 minutes. I think it's easier than pulling a VW engine.
  
• Mine started throwing oil out from between the cylinders one day. Because of excessive play (elongation), the cam chain slap had machined a slot all the way through the chain vault wall, between the cylinders in the block. I dropped the engine and, pulled the head and took the cylinders to my heli-arc pal, Jim Van Krenniken. He closed the hole and I put in a new chain and tensioner, reassembled it, changed the oil and drove it for another year or so before selling it.

I wish I still had mine...and, know where there's a sedan in a junkyard on the way to the farm. Hmmm...

erhaltene Planierraupe?=Got Dozer?

Fun memories! I have never sat in one let alone driven or ridden in one.

Tom W