Style Icon: The Honda S500 (1963)

I have always had a penchant for European style sports cars of the 1950s and 1960s – the Series 3 Sunbeam Alpine sitting top of my list. Neat and nippy, smaller cars just seem to have an understated refinement and elegance when compared to their bulkier brasher equivalents in the United States during the same period.

I recall regularly passing the Honda dealership located at the junction of Camden Street and Camden Road and stopping to admire the 1963 Honda S500 convertible on display outside. All cherry red and chrome, the S500 had a unique charm and I imagined myself driving it around town, soft top down, listening to Booker T & The MG’s ‘Hip Hug-Her’ (1967). The dealership is long gone but I wonder what happened to that car ……