The Honda Spocket Concept Was Way Ahead Of Its Time

The Tokyo Motor Show is just around the corner, which means we have an annual glut of fascinating, groundbreaking and often just plain weird concept cars to look forward to. 2025 looks set to be no different, with a six-wheeled luxury Lexus van, a giant jacked-up Toyota Century coupe, and a renewably-fuelled Mazda sports saloon all getting revealed at the show.

All of these will inevitably come with the promises of lots of shiny new tech, but how long will it be before we see any of it on the road? Some of it could be nearly production-ready, some could be decades away from reality, and some will likely never make it off the motor show stand. We just don’t know.

Neither, presumably, did Honda, when it unveiled the funky looking Spocket concept (yes, Spocket, not Sprocket) at the same show in 1999. Though it looked nearly as bizarre as its name sounded, it hid away some tech that, a quarter of a century later, would be some of the biggest talking points in upcoming production cars.

Let’s ignore the fact that it could transform from a roadster to a four-seater coupe to a pickup truck thanks to a tricksy sliding roof and retractable tailgate. There have been dozens of concept cars over the years with this changeable bodystyle gimmick, and the only time it’s really been tried in the real world is the Citroen C3 Pluriel. Yeah, no.

The rest of the Spocket, though, seemed to predict some of the big talking points of 2020s car tech. It was a hybrid, which wasn’t that big of a deal even in 1999 – in fact, the Spocket was shown off mere weeks before the original Honda Insight went on sale. 

It was how it went about its hybridness that was impressive – Honda never revealed full specs, but we know it was all-wheel drive with a petrol engine driving the front wheels and an independent electrified rear axle – sort of like a backwards Corvette E-Ray, 25 years early. 

The really remarkable part, though, is that power was sent to the rear wheels via a pair of compact in-wheel electric motors. These are still being paraded as ‘the next big thing’ in EV propulsion, but still haven’t really made it into any mass-produced cars – the electric Alpine A110 should be the car to change that next year.

There was other forward-thinking stuff to be found, too. The cabin, with its central screen and big spar separating the driver and passenger, was like a 1999-spec preview of 2020s sports car interior design, and there was even a yoke-style steering wheel – although the jury’s still out on whether Tesla and Lexus’ present-day use of this is a good thing.

The Spocket, then, was perhaps one of the most forward-thinking concepts of its era, and if something with a similar setup appeared at a motor show today, we wouldn’t blink twice. We just have to wonder why they called it the Spocket.