The eight best Honda road cars ever

Honda S800 – 1966

Honda began to build four-wheeled vehicles in the early 1960s, the first being the T360 Kei pick-up. The second vehicle, and the company’s first production car, was the S500 in 1963, a 531cc, rear-wheel-drive sportscar that weighed just 680kg. People loved it so much that, before long, company founder Soichiro Honda thought it would be smart to build another car with a bigger engine. Along came the 606cc, drop-top, rear-wheel-drive S600 in 1964, and then in 1966 the Honda S800 was born. Like its predecessors it was a drop-top, real-wheel-drive sportscar (although hard-tops were available for all) with a four-speed manual gearbox, but the S800 had a 791cc, four-cylinder engine with a colossal 71PS (52kW). It was cheap, reliable and a hoot to drive, the first Honda to reach 100mph, paving the way for decades of fun Hondas to come.

Honda Civic – 1972

Do you think anyone at Honda would have believed that, almost 50 years later, the Honda Civic would be one of the longest standing and best selling cars of all time? It seems crazy to think how old the Civic name is, and how popular it has been in so many different markets, with more than 24 million built, but it all started with the original in 1972.

Available with three or five doors, the original Civic had a 1.1-litre, water-cooled four-cylinder engine, and came with such luxuries as disc brakes, vinyl covered seats and an AM/FM radio. Looking back at it today it is a damn fine machine, so small, so light. America particularly liked it because, in Honda’s own words, it showed up “domestic rivals as lumbering, gas-guzzling dinosaurs”. Production lasted until 1979, and the look of it even inspired a certain modern electric Honda, which we’ll get onto a little later on…

Honda NSX-R – 1992

In fairness, we could have put any NSX on this list. The first NSX, launched in 1990, was a gem, and a work of genius from Honda’s engineers, and the facelift NSX from 2002 was a corker too. But for many it is the pre-facelift NSX that’s the best, and which makes the first NSX-R the best of the best.

The NSX was a supercar but one designed to be useable every day, with ample comfort and practicality. Some customers, however, wanted to experience the NSX in a more pure form, without some of the compromises that made the NSX such a good road car. The result was the NSX-R, a stripped out, stiffer NSX with very little in the way of creature comforts.

The sound system was thrown in the bin, for example, as was a lot of the sound deadening, the air conditioning system and the spare tyre. The electric seats were replaced with Kevlar seats made by Recaro, too, the alloy wheels replaced by forged aluminium Enkei wheels and the gearlever made out of lightweight titanium, among other things. All in all Honda’s bods managed to cut out 120kg, leaving behind a 1,230kg NSX.

Moreover, the suspension was retuned to make it more stable at high speed, a tighter limited-slip differential was fitted and the gear ratios shortened for better acceleration. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll see a modern NSX-R?

Honda Insight – 1999

You’d think a scissor-doored concept car that looked a little like a squashed Lamborghini would have nothing to do with a hybrid Honda, right? Well you’d be wrong.

If you’ve read our list of nine quirky Japanese concept cars we wish were built, you’ll know that at the 1997 Tokyo Motor Show Honda unveiled the world’s first hybrid sportscar, the J-VX. It was never built, much to our great sadness, but what was built and owes some of its styling to was the original Honda Insight.

The Insight was one of the first hybrids ever made, and so, knowing now where the automobile is heading and how crucial hybrids are to manufacturers nowadays, it was something of a trailblazer.

It was front-wheel-drive, its rear wheels were concealed for economy (yes, it’s basically a Jaguar XJR-9), its super-smooth aluminium body was made in the same factory as the NSX, and it had a 1.0-litre, three-cylinder petrol engine and a small electric motor, allowing it to crack a supposed 83mpg and 80g/km of CO₂. It even had a digital dashboard and an energy recovery system, things that are commonplace today but were cutting edge two decades ago. No, the Insight didn’t see the same success as the Toyota Prius, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t one of the most innovative Honda’s ever produced.

Honda S2000 – 1999

The backlash we’d get if a list of the best Honda road cars didn’t include the Honda S2000…

The spiritual successor to the S800, the S2000 had a 2.0-litre, naturally aspirated VTEC(-YO!) engine with 241PS (177kW) and 208Nm (153lbft) of torque (later models came with a 2.1-litre engine but with no extra power or torque and some extra weight, but different gearing and slightly better emission figures). Peak power was in the stratosphere at 8,300rpm, and the engine had a redline of 9,000rpm. Let’s just think about that for a second: a redline of nine thousand revolutions per minute. Rear-wheel-drive with a limited-slip differential and a six-speed manual, the S2000 became an instant success, and out of the many cars produced by Honda over the last 60 years, calls for the S2000 to be resurrected are often the loudest. Come on Honda, give it a go. There’s probably no money in it but why not build a modern S2000 with a turbocharged Type R engine under the bonnet? Please. We’re asking really nicely.

Honda Civic Type R FK2 – 2015

Some will always look back at the original Civic Type R, the EK9, as the greatest of all time. Others will look to the EP3 as the forever halo Civic. For me, though, it is, and likely always will be, the FK2 Civic Type R.

The FK2 Civic Type R was the first turbocharged Type R. It was a product of its time, as manufacturers were starting to realise strapping big-powered, naturally aspirated engines into cars probably wasn’t the best way to go about achieving various emission and economy targets… Some, understandably, were a trifle cheesed off at the decision to go turbo, but the advantage for the FK2 over its naturally aspirated predecessor the FN2 was power. And quite a lot of it.

The FN2’s 2.0-litre VTEC engine produced 201PS (147kW) and 193Nm (142lb ft), figures that weren’t too far of its predecessor the EP3. The FK2’s 2.0-litre turbocharged engine on the other hand threw out 310PS (228kW) and 400Nm (295lb ft) of torque. So that’s around 50 per cent more power and 100 per cent extra torque in a car that weighed just 62kg more. It was a bonkers, bonkers machine.

So why isn’t the FK8, the current Civic Type R, on this list? Well as good as the FK8 is, both dynamically and even in areas like interior quality, the FK2 was spikier and all the better for it. The FK8 requires some skill to get the most out of it, but the FK2 was a tad sharper, had a more aggressive front differential and was a tad less forgiving. It was also built in far fewer numbers, as unlike the FK8 the FK2 was never sold in America. What a car.

Honda NSX – 2019

In 2014 we were just getting used to the idea of a hybrid hypercar. Porsche, McLaren and Ferrari had created the hybrid 918 Spyder, P1 and LaFerrari hypercars respectively, and in some cases people wondered why the battery tech was necessary at all. “Pull the hybrid tech out and you’ll save weight,” some said. But those cars were leading front the front – they were the pioneers that would inspire others and do exactly what halo cars should do. Similarly, and just a few years later, Honda revealed its pioneering supercar: the NSX.

Yes, after a decade-long hiatus the NSX name was back, but it was a very different machine to the one that came before it. Honda experience the same sort of flack that Porsche, McLaren and Ferrari received, with calls for the hybrid powertrain to be binned for a more faithful follow-up to the original. Indeed, back in 2007 there was development on a naturally-aspirated V10 NSX. But Honda isn’t one to stand still, and as soon as people jumped behind the wheel all calls for it to be sold sans-hybrid went silent.

Built in Ohio, it had, and still has, a 3.5-litre, twin-turbo V6 hybrid powertrain. With 581PS (427kW), 645Nm (476lb ft) of torque and a nine-speed double-clutch gearbox, it is one of the fastest supercars on sale. And because of the electric motors (there are three, two to power the front wheels and one attached to the crankshaft) it can run on electric power alone, so you can cruise through a sleepy village one minute, then embarrass Ferraris the next.

Honda e – 2020

Ah, the Honda e. You might think it strange to include an electric hatchback on the list of best Hondas of all time, but trust me, it thoroughly deserves its place.

The Honda e began life as the Urban EV Concept at the 2017 Frankfurt Motor Show. The motoring press went absolutely mental for it, and rightly so: the Urban EV looked like nothing else in the Honda range, an enticing mash-up of the old and new. Its exterior designer Yuki Terai and its interior designer Fumihiro Yaguchi had managed to craft an intriguing retro look without it being, well, a bit naff, taking inspiration from cars like the original Honda Civic. Sadly there were some aspects of the Urban EV that would likely never make it to production (no chance of any kind of roll-over accident in a car with A-pillars as thin as those of the Urban EV), but amazingly the car did make it to production without losing any of the concept’s charm.

The Honda e has a 35.5kWh lithium-ion battery underneath the floor and an electric motor driving the rear wheels. No, it does not drive like an S2000, and at 1,514kg it is quite heavy for a tiny hatch, but Honda’s engineers have tried to, and succeeded in, making the Honda e the best handling little EV on sale. Being rear-wheel-drive there’s space at the front to give the front wheels more room to move, meaning a simply ridiculous turning circle. Because the battery is under the floor the Honda e actually has a similar centre of gravity to the modern NSX. The car also has a perfect 50:50 weight distribution, not forgetting a small, quite square wheelbase. As for the interior, well it’s loaded with screens (there are five in total) but nothing about it is distracting, the materials are very good and the driving position good, too. The Honda e is what so many other EVs are not: cool.

Honourable mention: Honda Civic Type R Pickup Truck – 2018

This isn’t an official entry on the list because whether it was road legal or not is a slightly grey area. It was also built sort-of unofficially because some wonderful people at Honda UK had a pre-production Type R lying around, waiting for its inevitable date with the crusher, and they thought ‘let’s do something a little silly’. But, well, it’s a Honda Civic Type R pick-up truck, so it has to get a mention.

Based on the FK8 Type R, with a 2.0-litre turbocharged, 320PS (235kW) engine, it was revealed to the British motoring press at Millbrook Proving Ground in 2018. It was also test-driven that very day on Millbrook’s famous Alpine handling course (if you’ve seen the scene in Casino Royale where James Bond flips his Aston Martin DBS, that’s the alpine route at Millbrook), complete with two Honda lawn mowers strapped down in the back. A phrase heard often that day was ‘the rear end is a little light’… No, you can’t buy it and it’ll likely never be seen again, but what an amazing thing to do with a car that would otherwise have just sat around in a workshop before being reduced to a cube.