Honda S600 coupe and convertible for Shannons auction

By: Guy Allen, Unique Cars magazine

Date: 29.11.2016

Honda S600 convertible

Honda S600 coupe

Honda S600 convertible

Honda S600 coupe

It's very rare to find both soft-top and coupe S600 in the one sale.

Honda S600 coupe runs a fairly high-tech engine for its day.

Shannons has two Honda S600s up for grabs in its December 5 Melbourne sale, so you could have the maker's entire 1965 car catalogue in one hit!

The S600 was a development of the S500 and is regarded as Honda's first proper mass-market automobile. The soft-top was launched in 1964 and the coupe you see here in 1965.

They were first produced in right-hand drive for the domestic market, but the company was soon producing left-hookers for export.

Both were powered by a liquid-cooled inline four - which was unique to this car as the Honda did not have a liquid-cooled production motorcycle engine at the time.

Displacing 606cc (up from the S500s 531) and running double overhead cams, it ran four Keihin carburetors, a feature that was very much motorcycle thinking. It claimed 57hp, a respectable number, and a top speed of 90mph (145km/h).

The coupe weighed just 730kg, 15 more than the convertible.

The coupe (lot 29) is estimated at $18-22,000 and the convertible (lot 34) at $22-28,000.

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