The Honda Civic was the VW Beetle’s spiritual successor in the US. By the mid 1970s, millions of VW owners and fans were ready for a…truly new Beetle, as in a modern car that had all the essential qualities that had made the VW so madly popular—cheap to buy, cheap to run, reliable, easy to fix and…just different. The Civic’s technical brilliance and other qualities made it just as outstanding as the Beetle had been in 1938, but by the 1970s, the Beetle was a rolling anachronism.
And just like the Beetle offered a semi-automatic “Automatic Stickshift”, so also did the Civic offer its semi-automatic “Hondamatic”. Although they were similar in operation, technically they had little in common. But then that was the case for pretty much everything about the Beetle and the Civic.
It’s difficult to overstate what a huge impact the Civic made in the US on its arrival. Unlike in Europe, where very compact FWD cars in this format were already established and growing in popularity, the Civic was essentially the first of its kind here to be embraced and sold in significant volumes.
Yes, Chrysler had been selling the FWD hatchback Simca 1100/1204 here for a couple of years before the Civic arrived, and it was highly regarded by the automotive press. But it sold in only very modest numbers here, undoubtedly due to the poor brand image of Simca by this time, which had suffered along with Renault. Simca was on its last legs in the US, and the 1100/1204 would be their last cars sold here. In other words, it suffered from the Studebaker effect—dead brand walking.
In other words, the polar opposite of Honda’s brand image, which was absolutely stellar. Honda had utterly revolutionized the motorcycle business, and was on a seemingly unstoppable growth trajectory. By 1969, it had steadily expanded its lineup to the paradigm-shifting four cylinder CB750. It was the perfect time to leverage its brand image as well as millions of young Honda (and other Japanese brand) motorcycle riders into four wheeler Hondas.
That arrived in the US in the fall of 1969 in the form of the Honda N600, a kei-class minicar that was popular in Japan as the N360 but upgraded with a significantly more powerful engine. Despite its diminutive size, both the car and the engine (600cc), its performance was surprising, quicker than a VW by a healthy margin (0-60 in 15 sec.). And it was a ball to drive, having once had that opportunity. Honda had turned the kei car class upside down.
If the Honda 360/600 wasn’t enough of a bold and original piece of work, ever far-seeing (and reaching) Soichiro Honda decided that Honda needed to have an automatic, as that was clearly the growing trend in the US. But this was to be for the 360cc N360. Building an automatic that would work properly with an engine this small had never really been done before. There’s a nice write up on the whole story here at Honda’s history website, but here’s the very condensed version:
Honda’s engineers started by asking Borg Warner for an automatic that would work behind their RWD S500 sports car, as a starting point. BW’s answer: we don’t have anything that will work with a 500cc engine and one that has an 8,000 rpm redline, twice what they were used to. So Honda went it alone, which was really more in keeping with their intent all along to avoid paying royalties. There were two main differences from previous automatics that allowed Honda to avoid royalties and be granted its own patents. The first was the torque converter design. From Honda’s web page:
The hydrodynamic torque converter consists of a pump, turbine and stator, and transmits engine power via oil circulation. The stator is used to convert torque, and is usually mounted in a stationary position. The development team’s idea was to make this stator free and movable. By using a bearing to turn the stator, they thought that sufficient force from the moving stator could be harnessed as amplified torque differential and transmitted to the hydraulic control valve. This could then engage the clutch based on the amount of torque present in the converter.
The control realized by this system was much simpler and more efficient compared to conventional hydraulic systems. This idea brought a dramatic degree of improvement in AT efficiency and was ultimately the basis for Honda’s patented technology on “an automatic transmission based on the detection of stator reactive force.” It was an invention born through determination, a team effort and the desire to create something that didn’t simply copy existing technologies.
The other key difference was that Honda did not use planetary gears, to avoid patent infringement, and instead used a twin-shaft (parallel-axis), twin-clutch helical gearbox, and still did through all of their subsequent automatics up through the 5-speed; more recent automatics used by Honda are either CVTs or ZF units. It’s a very efficient design, and created a distinctive “mechanic” feel to Honda automatics that has mostly disappeared in recent years.
This initial Hondamatic as built for the N360 and N600 was extremely compact and shared its case with the engine. It had three forward gears, all in the interests of efficiency. This drawing shows a lock up clutch on the torque converter, but shop manuals indicate that this was not put into production. Performance losses compared to the manual transmission were minimal too. In other words, a quite remarkable unit.
I have not been able to find any vintage reviews of the N600 Hondamatic, and I have no idea how many were actually sold in the US, but this ad does support that it was available here. It even had a very American-style shift quadrant on the steering column. In Drive it shifted full automatically, and there were also positions for 1, 2 and 3; selecting one locked it into that gear range.
This 3-speed automatic was also available on the N360’s successor, the Honda Life (1971). It was significantly longer, to offer four adults with as much room as possible within the kei car regulations. Its engine was now a water cooled twin with 356cc. It previews the styling characteristics of the Civic, and by 1974, it was discontinued because the Civic was so hugely popular and only marginally more expensive than the Life.
It would not be a stretch to say that the Civic was essentially a stretched Life. No longer constrained by kei car dimensions, the Civic grew in every dimension but was of course still a very compact car, even for the times, with a 86.6″ wb, 134.1″ length and 59.3″ width. It looks utterly Lilliputan in today’s traffic, but in its day four younger adults readily piled in and hit the road in Civics, not uncommonly with a pile of luggage on the roof, also a familiar sight on VWs back in the day.
Speaking of VWs, somewhat surprisingly, the Civic sports a fully independent rear suspension, using struts. This managed to get through despite Old man Honda’s vehement objections, and it improved space efficiency and of course the ride and handling.
As a true testament to how early Civic adopters felt about their neo-Beetles, they very commonly waved when encountering another on the road, something early VW adopters were known to do back in the mid-late ’50s. Of course that stopped once Civics became too popular, but early Honda owners were a bit cultish in their love and devotion. She’s probably driving a CRV or Pilot now.
As to sitting on the hood of a Civic, sitter beware: Honda was obsessed with keeping the weight of the Civic extremely low, so they kept reducing the thickness of its body steel by 0.1mm increments until it failed, then backed up to the previous thickness. That in part helps to explain both its nimbleness despite its fairly modest power as well as its vulnerability to corrosion if exposed to salt. Honda had to replace a lot of fenders on recalls and there were more serious issues with structural members.
This ’77 Civic has spent much of its life outside in Oregon, but then we do joke about our magical healing rains here. I did notice a bit of corrosion in the grooved joint on the roof where the roof and side body meet. I didn’t take a good look underneath, but the reality is that although eventually long term exposure to winter rain can cause corrosion in certain spots, salt is the real mortal enemy when mixed with water.
Unlike the kei-car N-Series and Life, the Civic was designed with global ambitions and as such required a lot of pragmatic choices to keep its cost down. The Civic really was basic transportation, but not without some compensations, like being fun to drive. One of those choices was to substantially dumb down the brilliant Hondamatic: It lost one of its forward gears as well as its self-shifting functions, resulting in a two-speed semi-automatic, not altogether different in function than Chevrolet’s Torque-Drive and Ford’s copy-cat Torque Drive.
The shift quadrant now just had a choice of 1 and 2, and like these other semi-automatics, it could be started in 2, thus avoiding any manual shifting and technically qualifying as an automatic transmission, not unlike the early Buick Dynaflow and Chevrolet Powerglide. But doing so obviously put a damper on take off acceleration, such as it was, as the torque converter was now doing all of the torque amplification.
Here’s a Youtube video of a guy driving one of these, and he’s unsure which gear to select when he starts his drive. He decides to start 2, and it doesn’t seem all that bad to him. Later he does put it in 1, and notices the improved acceleration from a start. I haven’t been able to find a vintage review of one of these either, so I don’t know just how badly acceleration was blunted, either in 1 or 2. But let’s face it, Honda offered this for that segment of the market that really wanted the convenience of an automatic, and most likely those owners were ok with the results.
Given that the Civic weighed so little (some 1,300 to 1,700 lbs,) and that in the US only the bigger CVCC 1500 engine with its pretty healthy torque curve was offered with the Hondamatic, it was undoubtedly adequate. And this was of course during the double-nickel years, when expectations were much lower than in more recent decades.
What’s a bit less excusable is that this same 2-speed Hondamatic was the only automatic offered in the (more) brilliant Accord and (less so brilliant) Prelude until 1980, when Honda reengineered the Hondamatic back into a proper 3-speed full automatic. Presumably that was done because Honda’s growth was exploding and they had more critical priorities. Perhaps to atone for that, already in 1983 the Hondamatic was given a fourth gear, generally well ahead of the majority of its competition, especially the domestics, some of whom still sported 3-speeds for way too long.
I’m not going to go into detail on the CVCC (Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion) engine that Honda made available on the Civic in 1975, as we have two in-depth posts on that subject here and here (links also at bottom). It was a brilliant solution to the reduction of harmful emissions. Honda had been working on this problem since 1966, as it was a very significant factor in Japan, not just in the US. It allowed Honda to meet the much tighter 1975 emission regulations without a catalytic converter.
Eventually the CVCC system hit the wall of ever tighter standards and Honda had to abandon CVCC for the established systems everyone else was using. But in its day, it was a big deal.
Although the larger displacement 1488 cc E-Series four looks to be externally largely the same as the smaller 1200 except likely taller due to a much longer stroke, the installation of the CVCC version of it required a two inch extension of the nose of the Civic, with longer front fenders and hood. Contrary to some assumptions (or memories) this engine was very much not a “revver”; the US version was rated at 53 hp at 5,000 rpm, just one more than the 1200’s 52 hp, although its torque rating of 68 lb.ft. was significantly stouter, and at a reasonably low 3,000 rpm. This makes the CVCC 1500 much more suitable to be teamed with the Hondamatic, just as the VW Beetle’s low-rev larger displacement 1500/1600 cc made the most of its Automatic Stickshift.
For the majority of Civic drivers that preferred a stick shift, the Civic arrived with a 4-speed manual and in 1974, a slick-shifting 5-speed became available. Yes, that was the way to go for driving enjoyment, which the Civic offered in very generous portions, unlike rear leg room. But we were all young, svelte and flexible, and with the front seat moved forward some, it really was doable, thanks to the magic of a very space efficient design inspired by the original Mini.
Yes, this survivor is for sale. I reached out to the seller; it belonged to his brother’s mother-in-law and had sat for a long time. It’s got 62,005 miles and is all-original except for a new radiator, the original cracked on a drive after it was put back on the road. They’re currently asking for $8,000, having started out at $18,000. I do not offer any thoughts on that, as old car pricing is above my pay grade. But if someone wants to relive the seventies in a small package, this might be interesting. It’s mighty cute.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: Honda Civic – The CVCC In The Words Of Honda Engineers by Rich Baron
Automotive History: Soichiro Honda Spanks GM CEO by Daniel Stern
Curbside Classic: 1973-1979 Honda Civic – The Second Little Revolutionary by me
Car Show Classic: 1969 Honda N360 AT – Think Small… No, Smaller Than That by Tatra87
Curbside Classic: 1970 Honda N600: From Rolling Acorns Mighty Hondas Grow by me
Automotive History: Chevrolet’s Torque Drive – A Dumber Powerglide by me
Curbside Classic: 1968 Volkswagen Automatic Stickshift · Chrysler’s Fluid Drive Returns In The Safer Käfer by Mya Byrne
I really like the early Civics, the details are so cool, and overall the car retains a bit of the British-ness that Japanese cars started out with and lost after 1980.
There’s been one or two early survivor Civics for sale here in the past decade, curiously they are always automatics. Kind of like survivor AMCs are almost always metallic green.
A friend in college had a yellow one as well, albeit with a stickshift. He revved the proverbial nuts off it and it was a hoot to drive around in. I remember at the time being struck by how actually nicely designed the interior was, especially the unexpected application of “wood” trim on the dashboard, and so light and airy inside, a Honda trademark for a long time (image ffrom a junker I came across a few years back).
Is the “1mm increments” a typo, should it be 0.1mm?
And I guess it’s 62005 miles?
Yes, typos on both accounts. Fixed now. Thanks.
It was almost a wasted effort bringing the Hondamatic back to 3sp full auto for 1980 unless they sold decent numbers in the Japanese home market and non-US export markets; with the VRA quotas in place they could’ve brought in nothing but manual transmissions for most of the ’80s and still sold every one.
In the Australian market at minimum, the three speed was a Hondamatic right up until the full-auto 4 speed in ’84.
Having owned Honda cycles when they started selling cars here I knew they’d be world beaters.
That certainty came true.
We drove a Simca like the one pictured camping all over 6 countries of Europe in 1976 and it was mediocre at best. Always had to stay in the R lane on the Autobahns, Autoroutes, and Autostradas! Didn’t go like the BMW 2800 we had at home at that time. The Vauxhall we had for a week in the UK was even worse.
I liked these a heck of a lot!
While at the UW in the late 1970s I knew a few people who drove these Civics around Madison. Great cars… for a while. After that you could just stand there and watch them rust.
I felt like getting in on the ground floor with these. The Pontiac dealer that sold our 74 Luxury LeMans took on Honda around that time. We got more than one Civic loaner when our car was in for service. The whole family loved it! And all of them seemed to be yellow, just like this one.
When I wrecked the LeMans in 1976, we got a Honda wagon (yellow) with the Honda Matic as a loaner, which we kept for about 3 weeks. I thrashed the absolute snot out of that car, as only the stupidest (and bravest) teens can do. The 2 speed semi-auto really blunted its acceleration, but it was smooth and easy to drive. But I would prefer a stick.
These are such “right” design. They look good and work well.
A great colour on this example. I had a friend who had one almost exactly the same about twenty years ago. I remember thing thinking “what a brilliant little car, shame about the transmission”. For me, that is still true.
These were quite rare in Canada as the 1200 continued longer than the US. Sadly parts for the 1200 are quite hard to come by.
Oh, I have a Hondamatic story 🙂
My father’s friend Clara in Montreal bought a Civic the first year they came out. She wanted a manual (being Italian/Spanish and born in Egypt, this was what she was used to) but there were none available, so she took a Hondamatic instead and it was generally fine.
A few months after her purchase, she was driving along the expressway chatting with a passenger in the front seat, and saw a traffic jam ahead. Planning to slow down, she went to downshift from fourth to third… and put it into Park. The Honda came to a screeching dead halt, with other cars honking angrily as they zipped past on either side. After several deep breaths, she put it back into a forward gear, and it drove away undramatically.
I had a four speed manual Civic coupe and later a Hondamatic wagon. The coupe was great with a manual transmission, and I, a Cadillac lover of long standing, was amazed by how much room there was inside! The wagon was even better in space utilization, I found it extremely useful with the back seat folded down. It was challenging to drive in some circumstances, like merging onto a busy freeway, but I drove it on longer runs to Sacramento and into the Central Valley over Pacheco Pass. Once it was moving, it climbed the grades satisfactorily. I kept it until I got my 1990 Civic Si, which was an immense improvement. That car was one of the best cars I ever owned. Like Randerson wrote, I had been a rider of several Honda motorcycles and expected their cars to be as good as their bikes, I was not disappointed.I really miss those days when Honda was a real leader in small cars.
The Honda Civic was the VW Beetle’s spiritual successor in the US. By the mid 1970s, millions of VW owners and fans were ready for a…truly new Beetle, as in a modern car that had all the essential qualities that had made the VW so madly popular—cheap to buy, cheap to run, reliable, easy to fix and…just different.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say it was mainly the “reliable” (and maybe “easy to fix”) part which is why you say the Civic and not the Rabbit was the spiritual successor to the Beetle. While the Rabbit was about 8 inches longer, they were both shorter than the Beetle, came on the U.S. market a year apart, powered by small-displacement four-cylinder engines, both had transverse engines and front-wheel drive, and were 2-box hatchbacks (standard on the Rabbit, available on the Civic).
Price may play in as well: The cheapest 1975 Civic hatchback cost $2,859 ($17,547 adjusted), which the cheapest Rabbit cost $3,330 ($20,438 adjusted), basically splitting the difference with the Beetle: $2,999 ($18,407 adjusted).
Not that I disagree – I’m just trying to determine if I have the rationale correct.
To this day, I consider the Mk1 Golf/Rabbit to be the best designed small car. There’s just not a bad angle. I think it’s more attractive than even the Scirocco which was based upon the same platform.
The Civic was okay, but my dream car would be a Golf built with Honda (or, better still, Toyota) engineering and quality.
There was a stripper Rabbit available in 1975 at a base price of $2999, but it had drum brakes on all 4 wheels, bias ply tires, and a back seat that couldn’t be folded down. Few were sold; most like me chose the $3330 version or higher to get front disk brakes, radial tires, and the fold-and-tumble rear seat with security cover for the cargo area. Mine was yellow like the featured Civic.
A first generation Civic with a Hondamatic is the only Civic I’ve ever driven. The car managed to sound like a Volkswagen Beetle and make more noise than speed. Since I was used to a 77 Accord with a 5 speed I was unimpressed because the bigger engine and manual transmission made more power with less noise.
Personally I preferred the styling and feel of the A1 Volkswagen since I owned two Sciroccos and a Jetta. At the time the not available here Polo would have been the Civic equivalent and the Scirocco and Accord were direct competitors. The Accord was nicer inside but the fuel injection and sharper handling made the VW more fun.
My first car, a ’73, bought mechanically knackered when it was 13 years old. A second hand engine and box from Japan, some interior from the wreckers, and away I went.
Being all geed up by reviews extolling the virtues of anything Euro, I was astounded how good the little bugger was. That stylish but minimal dash: the surprisingly good seats (including rear, which had as much real-world room as yawny 2 litre rwd Jap cars): the rwd snicky gearchange: the handling: and the 1200 engine that could be quite feasibly used with just 2500rpm, or 4 for a bit of squirt, and 6 for zip surely beyond likelihood. It was quite superior to anything small, but significantly, it was superior to the crudely-engineered 2-litre class runners too (lacking only their boot space). What a car.
I never knew the US Civic had a longer nose till reading this. Everything’s bigger in America, I guess.
Outside that land, the Hondmatic with three speeds lasted right into the time of the 3rd gen Civic, with both the Civic and Accord (and Prelude) not getting full auto till the 4 speed of ’84.
No contemporary N360 auto road test, but here’s a favourite eccentric youtuber of mine driving one in the UK.
https://youtu.be/uEXkIC4m0IU?si=8MCfkBf8fLcikKy_
Only the 1500 CVCC version got the longer nose, and that was wherever it was sold (maybe not in AUS?). The 1200 had the shorter nose. Apparently it was a packaging issue of some kind.
Outside that land, the Hondmatic with three speeds lasted right into the time of the 3rd gen Civic, with both the Civic and Accord (and Prelude) not getting full auto till the 4 speed of ’84.
The term “Hondamatic” was applied to both self-shifting and semi-automatic units. I’m not aware of the 3-speed version that arrived in ’79 not being solely a fully automatic unit; it certainly was in the US as we had one.
Here’s a pic from inside an Accord. You got “L”, star, and “O/D”, and you had to shift between them yourself. I suspect many owners just drove around in “star” (or direct-drive): I know that when I drove a gen 3 Civic of a friend they had no idea you could could select the others.
I distinctly remember asking her weeks later if she selected now, and her reply to the effect of “No, it’s too complicated”!
I briefly (about 3 months) owned the Hondamatic duplicate of this article’s car, I traded a 36 horsepower 1960 VW for it. I never regretted the trade!
My parents bought *two* 4-spd CVCC Civics in 1975. I guess Pearl Harbor could be forgotten in a Fuel Crisis, but I’m grateful they did. Obviously these were fun to drive. A nuisance: The accessory belt could not be replaced without unmounting the engine; Honda fixed this in a later generation.
Honda’s dealership business model was, stock the body-style/color/transmission combo, then offer dealer-installed extras like A/C, radio, luggage rack, extra mirror, etc., if they wanted them. Honda Pasadena had non-negotiable but reasonable prices.
Another nice survivor .
I remember these are three to five year old cars that had never had the oil changed leading to various engine failures .
At the time after paying $500 tops for the car in good cosmetic shape I could slap in a $150 Japanese take out engine and sell it in a day for $1,500 .
A few times I paid the $50 ~ $75 extra fee for a 5 speed tranny, that made them go like rockets .
Plenty of front seat room .
-Nate
Most of them seemed to be yellow over here, too.
It’s really quite remarkable how My Baby Killed The Big Three. I suppose there was just too much similar competition to repeat over here – we didn’t really have malaise era dinosaurs and had to laugh at yours instead.
Well, until Honda got middle-aged and complacent and now IS one of the Big Three…companies have a life cycle too.