When you think “Honda,” what image does your brain conjure up? Personally, before I moved to Japan, I used to get a white four-door compact. Something competent, FWD, no-nonsense and easy to use – good, but lacking in excitement. It’s not easy to break out of such an image, which is also the one they had in Japan in the ‘80s. Then the Beat arrived (along with the NSX) and Honda rediscovered their sports car roots.
But the Beat did not appear in a vacuum. There was a sports car tradition in Honda, hailing back to the marque’s first ventures into four-wheeled vehicles, back in the early ‘60s. But then the little S500 grew to become the 800, by which time the rest of the range, aside from kei trucks, moved to FWD. The last Honda S800 roadster left the factory in 1970 and Honda re-focused their energies on growing their family car range. This was not the only major re-orientation that Honda undertook in the ‘70s. Japan’s strict kei car regulations have famously changed very little – ever. But when they did change, it was like an earthquake on the JDM. The first big change was the switch from 360cc to 550cc, taking place on New Year’s Day 1976.
This was a big deal – and it was not something the industry expected, either, coming as it did while tighter emissions regulations were being gradually enacted, forcing carmakers to tinker with their keis quite a lot. Being caught flat-footed once again, some elected to exit the kei market outright – Honda among them, though they did keep their truck line going. Honda took ten years to return to the passenger kei car segment, starting anew with the Today in 1985.
Then the Second Big Huge Revision of Small Car Regulations took place in January 1990, and the place went wild. But unlike the earlier change, the regulators had given carmakers plenty of forewarning, so the transition was a lot smoother. And thus it allowed three carmakers to effectively create a new subcategory of keis: the two-seater sports, known as the “ABC keis.”
Mazda, Honda and Suzuki were behind this mysterious acronym. Suzuki launched the C (or Cappucino) front-engined T-top in October 1991. Mazda, under their Autozam brand, delivered the whacky A (for AZ-1) mid-engined gullwing coupé the next year. But the first to reach the market had been the Honda B (for Beat) convertible, presented in May 1991. This turned out to be fortuitous, as this was the last new model company founder Soichiro Honda saw the launch of before he died, aged 84, in August 1991.
The Beat went off the proverbial path in many ways. It featured all-round independent suspension, 13-inch wheels at front but 14-inchers at the rear, a 5-speed manual as the only transmission option and disc brakes on all four wheels. The mid-mounted engine was a water-cooled 656cc OHC 3-cyl. with four valves per cylinder providing, as required by the kei car laws, a maximum power of 63hp. However, said power was attained without the aid of a supercharger: they did it the Honda way, by designing their tiny triple to deliver the soybeans at 8100rpm.
Space was pretty tight in all three of the kei sports cars – nothing outrageous there. The Honda was the lowest of the bunch, being a drop-top, but it had a decently long wheelbase for its size (max length, by law, was 3.3 meters, which is not a lot. Luggage space, for instance, was not part of the package – hence why the optional luggage rack, as seen on our feature car, became a sought-after item.
The Autozam was a bit too much of an oddball to be a hit, though it has a tremendous cult following nowadays. The Cappucino was the ABC’s success story – Suzuki even sold a few abroad, which must have surprised even them. The Beat, for its part, did ok, but hardly set any sales records. Honda sold 33,000 between 1991 and 1996, though two-thirds of that number were made in 1991-92 and production stopped in mid-1995. Our CC’s black dials and plain upholstery make it one of those rarer late cars.
The Beat was allegedly designed by Pininfarina, though apparently the Italians discreetly subcontracted the Honda account to Pavel Hušek, a Czechoslovak designer based in Ingolstadt. There is no mention of Pininfarina in contemporary Japanese documents, nor on the car itself, but it seems Honda keenly spread the rumour of the Italian design house’s involvement themselves, unaware that the real author of the design was someone else. Not that it matters much – it’s one of the best-looking Hondas ever made, in my opinion.
There were several potential reasons for the Beat’s somewhat lackluster market performance. It was the only true roadster of the bunch, but it was also the least sporty in some ways: the Suzuki and the Autozam were turbocharged, but the Honda was not. But the chief culprit behind the Beat’s failure, which also affected other innovative JDM cars of the early ‘90s (e.g. Toyota Sera), was Japan’s severe economic downturn, from 1991 onward. Still, for a model that had such limited production, the Beat is still fairly commonly seen in 2021 traffic. Honda’s cheap, well-built and stylish roadster finally found its public. And the Beat does go on.
Related posts:
Automotive History (Japan Edition): 1993 Honda Beat – Bite-Sized Fun, by Geraldo Solis
CC Capsule: 1991 Honda Beat – And The Beat Goes On (In Canada), by David Saunders
And would you believe it, the CC effect means I saw one of these little tackers but yesterday in Richmond, Melbourne, a mere 8,000 km from its place of making, an event made even more notable as it was one of the car-disinterested kids here who asked from the blue, “What’s that?” As he hadn’t missed a Beat, neither did I do so in identifying it. They were not imported here new.
Can’t agree that it’s among the best-lookers from Honda, but it’s no oil-slick either. In person – unexpected – it’s rather sweet, a manly minor. Which sounds kinda wrong, but you get the drift.
Great stuff, Dr T. Plenty of Kei stuff here I had not known before.
Ah…. I had a fetish for these darlings; I hadn’t wanted anything so badly since the “Honda City Turbo II Bulldog” back in the 80’s. Alas, living where I did at the time, I had no justification that I could use on Mrs. Lokki that we needed any car, let alone a sports car, and I would have had to rent a parking space some blocks away for it. I never even got to sit in one to see if I would fit.
However, I do believe the Beat goes on… with the world in the state it’s in, it’s been a few years since I’ve visited Japan, but the last time I was there I saw this:
(I know nothing about it except from what I can read from the badges – I must leave any further information in the capable hands of our man in Tokyo, Tatra87
Apologies for the tardy reply!
this is the current Honda S660 kei roadster, very much the spiritual successor of the Beat. A lovely little thing it is too.
Jim Brophy likes it as well, and wrote it up.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-outtake/curbside-outtake-honda-s660-daihatsu-copen-and-daihatsu-move-canbus-my-top-3-favorite-kei-cars/
I got to drive one of these in 1991 in the USA (it was a GM test car). It really was tiny compared to normal cars and absolutely miniscule against pickups and Class 8s!
But what fun! Just rag on that sweet little 3 pot, enjoy the neutral handling and end up grinning like an idiot! Slow car fast, etc. And it was well designed and felt like a quality piece, too.
I would love to have one, especially with the Zebra upholstery option. Would love to try the new 660, too.
Cute cars, I saw one like this on the Navy base in San Diego a couple of years ago. The Hot Wheels sticker on the back completed the look.
Always loved these little things. Unlike Justy I’ve never seen one, but then I do live out in the sticks.
And in a further example of the CC effect, there’s one on my bench at the moment. An early car with the wild upholstery pattern, in yellow.
Forgot the picture.
Great article! I own a Beat in Southern California, it’s just pure joy to drive and rev out. My favorite Honda by far. Impossible not to be smiling the entire drive.
I see where Maine and Rhode Island will no longer allow residents to register any Kei cars anymore. Even those registered there now cannot be renewed. Even the ones that are 25+years old. I hope this doesn’t happen in other states. https://www.autoblog.com/2021/10/05/rhode-island-deregistering-jdm-kei-cars/
That’s not the whole story—see here.
Honda cars did go thru a boring, appliance like period. But their motorcycles and ATV’s more than made up for it. I had a 1984 ATC200X, bored and stroked to 220cc’s, with all the rest of the go fast goodies. Was wicked fast, enough low end torque to thread the handle bars between the trees here in the Oregon coast range, and I couldn’t kill it. It tried to kill me several times, but no major harm happened to the machine or me.