Ah, the 2010s! What a blessed decade that was. For some things, maybe. Car design-wise, it was actually piss-poor, on the whole. The overweight, squinty-eyed, angry-edgy-chunky tanks we are currently enduring all trace their aesthetic origins back to that dreadful time. There are always a few exceptions, though. A few reasons to keep hoping. This Honda is one of them.
It doesn’t mean you have to like it. Yes, it’s polarizing, even weird. But weird is a good thing when normal is unattractive, surely? And although they dubbed it “Neo Classic”, it’s not overly retro – certainly compared to the usual Japanese fare. No Mitsuoka badge on this one.
What’s an S660, you ask? In its home country, Honda is not merely the purveyor of mid-sized family sedans that it is everywhere else. A very substantial share of the JDM range is made up of kei cars and vans. Back in the ‘90s, Honda devised the Beat, a sporty mid-engined two-seater kei roadster; 20 years on, they decided to revisit the concept with the S660. Like the Beat before it, it was a very niche kind of product – yearly sales only cracked the 10,000 unit mark once during its production run (2015-2022) – but it was a great success in terms of image.
Photo source: Honda Blog Italia
Honda Access, the carmaker’s specialist / performance body parts subsidiary, nevertheless developed a full GRP body kit for the S660, presenting a first draft of it at the 2016 Tokyo Motor Show. It took a couple of years for the Neo Classic to turn into a market-ready reality, so sales only started in August 2018.
When I said “full body kit”, it really is as full as it gets. Only the original car’s doors, cowl and roof remained as was. The kit on its own cost ¥1.3m (which translated to about US$12k in 2019-21), to which one should add the price of a second-hand Honda S660, as well as installing and painting the kit. Honda publicized a list of nine dealerships could do all those extra steps for you – for a fee, of course, but I think most customers here would prefer paying extra to have their plastic professionally painted.
This all adds up to being a lot of Yen for a kei – essentially, this is the most expensive car in its class by quite a margin. That might explain the rarity.
It’s also significant that the kits soon commanded a three-year waiting list. Neo Classic kit sales officially ended in May 2021, so I guess that means new ones might still be being assembled, even if the S660 itself has been out of production for over a year by now.
The most striking (and kind of retro) feature of the design has to be those big round headlights. Hondas of old certainly had them and some of their present-day kei lineup does too. But the black mask surrounding them is the kicker. Makes that face look like it’s about to go rob a bank in a black-and-white movie. How do you say “Stick ‘em up, see” in Japanese?
The rear end is also pretty odd, like a Lamborghini that shrank in the wash and was then rear-ended by a bus. I kind of like it, truth be told, but the prototype’s snug taillights looked better than the round afterthoughts they stuck in the final product.
I have no idea how many of these were made (or are still being made), but I’ve seen three or four in total so far, when the standard S660 is a daily encounter. Some of these have been fitted with high performance engines and body enhancements for racing, so perhaps that masked frown is more aerodynamic. It’s certainly distinctive – and that’s already a lot, for a 2010s design.
Related post:
Curbside Outtake: Honda S660, Daihatsu Copen, and Daihatsu Move Canbus – My Top 3 Favorite Kei Cars, by Jim Brophy
That front end styling scares me!!
Kids in the school crossing would scream and run in fear!!
No need for a steering wheel club lock, no one in their right mind would steal it!!
Yet, AMC sold thousands of Pacers & Matador Coupes.
I guess to drive a Neo Classic is to luv a Neo Classic!!
Go figure!!
That car is neat. Unfortunately, by the time we’re able to legally import them into the US (by current law), I will have probably been forced to stop driving for quite a few years. That’s assuming I’m still alive and breathing, of course.
It looks like a mad bumble bee and / or one of the powderpuff girls ( a cartoon from 25 years ago ) lol
The front end of the car is suited to a children’s animated cartoon. Little Louie, The Wonder Boy, drives his Huffy Puffy (If I may steal from P. G. Wodehouse). Thanks for the enlightenment.
I live in Japan, and I see these at least once or twice a week…their owners are loyal. I love Japan for it willingness to try weird styling sometimes.
It makes my eyes hurt, but still more tasteful than this.
Does my face look big in this?
It does tend to look as if the face reflects the rear bus-shunting you refer to, frozen at the moment of impact, though I’d idly speculate that it might in fact be a manga-ish interpretation of the 1972 Civic face.
On the whole – and I doubt you can buy just the face – I’ll concede to it being quirky enough to escape a mild withering. If it came from France, fools (like me) would probably be falling over themselves to extol its individuality.
But without beating up a story, I’d take the new Beat in a beat, because it really couldn’t be beat (though, of course, being a Honda, it really could be beat, and still not miss a beat, but I’m gone off the beaten track). That 2015 gen really was a delicious supercar miniature, and adding $12K of melty bits to improve upon it, didn’t.
The base car is better looking but it is certainly distinctive looking. I am glad someone paid a hefty premium for this as it makes the world more interesting but won’t be me.
They have a redesigned front clip and headlights and it really improves the look IMHO.
Currently some states are trying to ban Kei car imports. Yet another cool JDM car we may never get here.
Arrrgh!