Vintage Hondas
Thursday, August 21st, 2008One thing that people in general don’t know about me is that in addition to road racing and rally, I’m really into vintage Japanese and microcars.
Over the last year or two I’ve managed to track down and acquire several of these often neglected machines, and have been working with my father to restore them to running, driving condition.
So without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to several of the project cars:
1971 Honda Z600 Coupe (Pop Orange)
The Pop Orange N600 was actually the first 600 we purchased (I think sometime in 2006 or 2007). It had been sitting in a barn out in Ferndale, WA for a while after the motor failed. Overall the car is in pretty good shape, although some components aren’t 100% stock. Trying to find a replacement motor was actually a big part of why we bought the N600 Sedans (below). Originally the plan was to do a full restoration on this one, but because it isn’t completely original and we now have a better candidate in the green Z, we are leaning towards doing something… interesting… with this one.
1970 Honda N600 Sedan (Spring Yellow)
The 1970 N600 Sedan actually came with a twin sister, a 1969 N600 Sedan. We found the pair of them for sale out of Ellensburg, WA and picked them up in the Fall of 2007. The twin was in really, really rough shape and so was stripped for parts, and it was intended that the motor would go into the orange car. This was apropos because later in the winter a tree fell on the stripped-out chassis. It was a noble sacrifice because if it hadn’t of taken the brunt of the impact, the tree probably would have crushed our new Civic rally car.
The goal for this car is to turn it into nice driver. While not a full restoration, it will use original parts as much as possible and probably get a new paint job. Over the last winter we were able to get the car running and moving under its own power by rebuilding the carburetor and cleaning the fuel system. We need to put the refurbished fuel tank and braking system in to the car and it should be ready to drive.
1971 Honda Z600 Coupe (PoPo Green)
The Green Z600 was an impulse buy. I have an automated eBay search for vintage Japanese automobiles and this one was for sale in Sammamish, WA–roughly 5 miles from my house. The owner (who was a really great guy), had one of these years ago and wanted to relive those days, but it just did not end up happening.
It also came with a sister car, a N600 which was a bit of a basketcase, having been “customized” by a previous owner.
The coupe though is in really good shape, with only minor rust areas and was almost complete with the exception of some ignition and exhaust. We replaced the ig
