The final project of Soichiro Honda: Rare air-cooled dry-sumped coupe
Soichiro Honda grew up immersed in machinery; born to a blacksmith father who built bicycles out of recycled parts, and a mother who made her own weaving looms.
Mr. Honda’s esteemed company had humble beginnings: after WWII, Honda Motor was founded in 1946 producing motorcycles by adapting surplus generator motor to bicycles.
Ever the innovator, once post-war supplies of generators were exhausted, he began building his own.
Decades later by the time the 1300 arrived Honda had proven itself as a world-class manufacturer; with an F1 Constructor’s title already to their name (winning their first Grand Prix in 1965), and having already released the cult S500 and N360 Kei-car.
However, these cars were far too small to contend in the sales charts of international markets, and Honda decided they needed a car to rival Toyota’s Corona and Nissan’s Bluebird.
Powered by an innovative 1300cc dry-sumped and air-cooled four-cylinder, the Honda 1300 was available in two guises: the Series 7 with a single carburettor yielding 74kW, or the Series 9 with a four-carburettor 85kW unit (though varying trims within the ‘lower’ Series 7 allowed for the four-carburettor package as an option).
Apart from the plucky little power unit, the 1300 arguably set the precedence for Honda’s prowess for fantastic front-drive sports cars, with sister-mag Wheels stating that you wouldn’t know it was front-wheel drive unless you looked under the bonnet.
It does look a bit Pontiac-esque, but perhaps that can be explained by the fact that Mr. Honda personally owned and loved a Pontiac Firebird at the time.
This 1971 Honda 1300 Coupe 7 is reportedly a one-family owned car, and one of 1056 exported from Japan.
Being a ‘Series 7’, it’s fitted with the 74kW single-carburetted 1300cc motor. The rare Japanese collectible coupe is reportedly in very good condition in regards to paint, trim, chrome and tyres.
There is a caveat however: the listing points out that while the car drives great – it does blow some smoke and requires attention. Having said that, this Honda 1300 seems priced accordingly at $11,950 – we’ve only seen one other Honda 1300 pass through our classifieds recently, listed for more than double that.
The car is based in South Australia, check out the full listing here!
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