Honda in the 1980s and 1990s was full of dreams
The Honda of the 1980s and 1990s has an image of being ahead of the pack among domestic automakers in a good way, thanks to technological innovations in production cars and its participation in the second phase of Formula One. In production cars, the VTEC engine. Longitudinally mounted in-line five-cylinder engine. The world’s first all-aluminum monocoque body, and the adoption of 4WS with four-wheel steering.
In motorsport, the first F1 race at the Suzuka Circuit in 1987 and the realization of Satoru Nakajima as the first Japanese regular F1 driver; from 1988, McLaren Honda, with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, won 15 out of 16 races and was double champion for five consecutive years after that. Honda was also responsible for the unprecedented F1 boom in Japan, as exemplified by the Showa Shell Sekiyu commercial “Senna-sama”.
In other words, the car models covered by the Neo-classical Honda Fan Meeting 2023 gave Honda many new opportunities to establish the culture of the car in society, involving not only enthusiastic car enthusiasts, but also the general public who were not interested. The meeting was a gathering of cars from that era.
A collection of rare cars rarely seen in everyday life
Observing the cars entered, it is to be expected that many of the “Beats”, which were popular models at the time and whose rarity is the reason why so many are still in existence, are taking part. On the other hand, we were surprised to see 15 cars of the “Prelude”, which sold so well at the time but is rarely seen at classic events!
We had expected a fair number of ‘NSX’ and ‘S2000’ users to attend, but there were a total of five ‘Accord Inspire’ and ‘Inspire’ cars. There were also six ‘Today’ cars, and five ‘City’ cars, so the Neo-Classic Honda Fan Meeting is probably the only event where these two sports cars, which are more representative of Japan than Honda, and the more common cars that drove around town a lot daily in that era, get together almost equally.
Other models include the Accord/Accord Wagon, Inova, Insight (first generation), Integra, Civic, Torneo, Vamos (second generation), Legend, Logo, CR-X, CR-X Del Sol, S-MX and Z (second generation). In addition, the Step Van, Z360, and S800 also took part as special Legends, bringing together enough models to make you nostalgic for those days at the Amagi Water Culture Village in Asakura City, Fukuoka Prefecture.
Some of the users were in their 20s, depending on the model, giving the impression that the “neo-classic” genre is gradually spreading to a wider generation of car enthusiasts. Seeing users from different generations interacting with each other, we felt that the organizing committee was fulfilling its role as a ‘place for information exchange’, which was its objective. From here, new exchanges will be born, which will then lead to the next participants.
The Neo-Classic Honda Fan Meeting is scheduled to continue in the future. If you have read this article and expressed interest in participating in the next one, please check the official account!
translated by DeepL
