Honda’s Fully Restored Serial One, First Automobile in America
Tim Mings restores old Hondas for a living. Yet according to him, the most significant project he worked on was the first ever Honda car that arrived on North-American soil.
Nicknamed Serial One, the diminutive Honda N600 served as a test vehicle in the United States, and ended up being parked and neglected for almost 50 years. In 1967, the Japanese company imported 50 units of the N600 into the United States to evaluate if it could be a suitable vehicle for the country’s roadways and lifestyle. Not too long ago, Mings bought the wreckage and kept it for two or three years before discovering the car was stamped with the serial number “N600-100001.”
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The restoration took Mings and his team about a year to complete, as they took the car apart piece by piece. Once the work was completed, the Serial One was revealed at the 12th annual Japanese Classic Car Show in Long Beach, California on September 24.
The N600 went on sale in the United States as a 1970 model. It weighed just 1312 pounds and was equipped with an air-cooled, 600-cc twin-cylinder engine. Back then, it cost USD$1,395. At the time, Honda offered the N600 and the Z600 models in the U.S., which were eventually replaced by the Honda Civic. The latter was the first Honda car sold in Canada.
The Serial One has a dedicated website with the full story on the car’s restoration.