The Japanese sports car series.
Part 1 the beginning in the 1960s.

1. The Honda s500

Surprisingly the Honda s500 was the first small car build by Honda.
The s500 was presented in October 1962 at the Tokyo motorshow under the name sports 500.
At the same time Honda presented the s360, a even smaller version of the s500 and its first small truck the t360.
The production started at August 1963 at the Honda production site in Hamamatsu.
Until September 1964 the s500 was only available als a convertible.
Let’s open the bonnet of this beast and take a look at this little beast.
The engine is a watercooled 530cc dohc inline four developed from Hondas motorcycle expertise.
That’s the reason why the s500 has a chain to transmit its power to the back wheels.
The engine produces 44hp at 8000rpm.
This might not be super car level but with a weight of only 630 kg this engine was pretty decent and allowed the s500 to hit 80mph.
The s500 was also equipped with a 4 speed manual and a four wheel independent suspension.
The Honda s500 was priced around 1,275$. With a fiberglass hardtop as an option.
Until September 1964 1,363 Honda s500 were produced.

2. Toyota sports 800

The jolly good looking Toyota sports 800 was toyotas first sports car.
The also called “yota-hachi” (Toyota eight) debuted in 1962 on the Tokyo motorshow.
It used the power train from the toyota publica, which resulted in 28hp.
After some time Toyota displaced the the engine from 700cc to 800cc which increased the power to 45hp and the possibility to run 100mph as a top speed.
Between 1965 and 1969 3,131 units were produced by toyotas subcontractor Kanto auto works.
As we sadly know today only 10% of these vehicles have survived.
And oddly 300 yotahachis were produced lhd to the Okinawa market. Why? At this time Okinawa was occupied by the U.S. .
Toyota also planned to import the yotahachi to the U.S. , but after a few test drives the plan got cancelled.

3. The Toyota 2000gt

My personal favorite Japanese car of the 60s is the Toyota 2000gt.
This two seated grand tourer was presented at the Tokyo motorshow in 1965 and revolutionized the worlds view on japanase cars with its powerful engine and the stunning fastback design which has also won a lot of prices.
And to be honest the 2000gt is a good looking car.
Even the road& track magazine reviewed the 2000gt as “ one of the mot exciting and enjoyable car we’ve ever driven”.
And even compared it to the Porsche 911. Not too bad for a car manufacturer who was known in the western world as a truck an small car producer.
Today we know that the 2000gt is the first Japanese super car.
Today, the 2000gt is traded around 1.2mio $.
Now let’s take a quick look at the technical details.
The engine is a 2 liter inline six. Based on the top model engine from the crown sedan.
With a tuning by Yamaha, the engine got a maximum power output of 150hp.
The 2000gt was also equipped with a sporty five speed transmission the 2000gt was available with three different drives. The fastest setup made the 2000 gt capable of reaching 135mph.
The 2000gt was also equipped with a limited slip differential and disc brakes on all wheels which gave the 2000gt a real good performance in corners.
The 2000gt was sold for 6.800$ which was way more than its European equivalents from Porsche and jaguar.
Only 60 cars reached North America and only 351 cars were produced.

If you miss any cars, don’t worry. I don’t want to make a encyclopedia about Japanese cars.
I just want to give you ctzens a little look in the beginning of Japanese sports cars.
In part 2 I will focus on the 70s with cars like the 240z, hachiroku or Mazda Cosmo.
If you liked this #blogpost or have any car wishes for the 70s leave a comment.
Stay tuned for part 2!