Honda's Secret Garage

Honda’s Secret Garage Photos Honda certainly had humble beginnings in the U.S. Photos by By Douglas Kott June 2007

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Quite similar in mechanical specification to the N600, the 1375-lb. Z600 Coupe was impossibly small and not well-suited to U.S. driving conditions. Easy to park, though.	The rare Honda without an internal-combustion engine. This Soapbox Derby car is finished with the sort of attention to detail bestowed on Acura/Honda production cars.	The early-1970s’ N600, with 36 bhp of twin-cylinder, air-cooled fury. This tiny front-driver has MacPherson-strut front suspension and a beam rear axle on leaf springs.
VTEC has become almost a generic term for variable valve timing and lift systems, because Honda pioneered the concept. Here, a cutaway B18C1 powerplant.	Honda-powered Indy cars, stacked two high. Company founder Soichiro Honda would have been proud of his company’s recent competition successes.	Honda has cut its engineering teeth on high-revving, high-tech engines, so the Indy Car V-8 program was a natural progression. The Garage has five or six on display.
The Garage currently has a sampling of just nine Honda scooters and motorcycles, but that will change when a mezzanine display area is built against the wall.	In 1986, Honda rocked the establishment with its upmarket division, Acura. Here is the Legend sedan…audaciously named, with an ultra-smooth 2.5-liter V-6.	A poster for the original Honda Civic, in all its expressive and kitschy 1970s’ glory. The Civic brought Honda into America’s small-car consciousness.
This blister-flared CRX 2-seater from the mid-1980s showcased numerous offerings from the company’s internal performance-parts division, Mugen Racing.	The original 68-bhp Honda Accord, with its unexpected refinement and convenience features, made Americans take Japanese cars seriously. Its price in 1976? $3995.	A Super Cub 50, vintage 1960 or 1961, the motorcycle that first gave Honda the tiniest of footholds in the U.S. market. Honda still makes a version for sale in Japan.
Honda’s “Secret Garage” serves as a corporate meeting place where employees are surrounded by significant examples of the company’s cars and motorcycles.