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Situated about two hours north of Tokyo in the rolling hills and forests of Tochigi province is the Honda Collection Hall.
Located at the Motegi Twin Ring complex, which can be a bit tricky to get to, the museum is a delight for all automotive fans.
Built in 1990, the site includes impressive oval and road course race circuits, a hotel, go-kart track, hiking trails and camping areas as well the museum.
Featuring treasures from company founder Soichiro Honda’s early pre-war racing, the birth of the motorcycle company up to more recent history of Formula One, sports car and Indy car racing, the museum celebrates the Honda philosophy of ‘creating products that serve people’.
Autocar recently visited and these are the highlights from our intriguing visit:
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Curtiss Special (1924)
This is the race car that the young engineer Soichiro Honda worked on at the Art Shokai automobile service station in Tokyo, competing in as riding mechanic and firing his passion for motorsport. The car featured an 8.2-litre overhead valve Curtiss V8 aircraft engine mounted in a bespoke chassis and multi plate clutch.
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Honda S360 (1962)
Honda’s first car was this pretty little sports car developed using much of its motorcycle technology. It featured a 356cc DOHC four power plant with chain rear wheel drive and weighed in at just 510kg. Effectively a prototype, it never saw full scale production.
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Honda S500 (1963)
Realising that customers needed more performance, this is the first Honda that made it to market, thankfully with a larger engine. It featured a 530cc straight four-cylinder, four carburettor DOHC engine. Despite being one-third heavier than the prototype at 680kg, the 44bhp machine could achieve 85mph. With a nod to both its motorcycle past and its future, its engine speed redline was at a heady 9500rpm.
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Honda S800 (1968)
The final iteration of the S series was the S800M available both as a roadster and a coupe. With dual- circuit brakes, discs up front, four speed synchromesh gearbox and 70bhp at 8000rpm on tap, it was capable of 100mph. Built to take on the export market of the sporting MG and Triumph range, Honda described it as ‘the fastest production 1.0-litre car in the world’.
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Honda N360 (1967)
Using the mantra of ‘man maximum/machine minimum’ Honda produced the N360 and it was Japan’s best-selling ‘kei’ car for three years running after launch. With 30% more power than its rivals, it featured an air-cooled 356cc in line four delivering 31bhp to the front wheels. The spacious interior could comfortably seat four adults, or so Honda claimed.
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Honda 1300 (1969)
Honda biggest car to date was this 1.3-litre air-cooled and front wheel drive model. It featured founder Soichiro Honda’s innovative Duo Dyna Air Cooling, a system that forced cooling air from a fan mounted on the flywheel through a jacket around the four-cylinder engine.
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Honda 1300 Coupe S (1970)
Available in two body styles, Sedan and Coupe the four carburettor all-aluminium SOHC dry sump engine developed more than 110bhp and was much loved by racers. It was to be Honda’s last air-cooled car engine.
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Honda Civic (1972)
The Civic set a new standard for small cars in the world. The styling was modern with a powertrain layout mimicking the best-selling Mini, with a wheel in each corner and transverse FWD engine. In 1973 the Civic was the first car to be fitted with Honda’s CVCC low emission engine to meet the stringent new US emissions rules.
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Honda Civic Country estate car (1980)
For the second generation of Civic the ‘Country’ station wagon was added to the list of models available that also included a saloon, coupe and hatchback. There was also the option for the new two-speed Hondamatic transmission featuring sliding rather than planetary gears to reduce drag. The Civic is now its tenth generation; 20 million Civics have been sold to date, over half of them in America.
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Honda RA272 F1 car (1965)
The RA272 was the first Japanese car to win a Formula One Grand Prix. The RA 272 debuted at Monaco with Americans Richie Ginther and Ronnie Bucknum behind the wheel. With a real screamer of a transversely mounted 1.5-litre V12 high revving engine, the car was very fast off the line. While it proved initially unreliable, in the season’s final race in Mexico Ginther took the lead on the first lap and stayed there right through to the chequered flag.
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Honda P800 Pick-Up (1966)
Just over 1000 of these nippy little pick-ups were built featuring mechanicals from the S800 sports car and a chassis from Honda’s first light commercial vehicle, the L700. With 58bhp on tap from its 791cc DOHC straight four-cylinder engine and rear-wheel drive, the P800 boasted excellent performance, though sales were scarce.
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Honda Z (1970)
With wacky dayglo colours right on trend for 1970 the ‘Z ‘ was one of first specifically designed city or ‘Kei’ cars to appeal on the exterior design front. Initially sold through Honda motorcycle dealers before the more mainstream Civic spawned car concessions, the Z was available with a range of small air-, and later, water-cooled engines and continued in production until 1974.
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Honda Life Step Van (1972)
An early MPV? With a high roof, wide opening doors and decent luggage space, the car featured Honda’s high revving 356cc twin mounted up front driving the front wheels as opposed to the standard light commercial arrangement of the time of rear-wheel drive, allowing a flat floor throughout.
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Honda Electro Gyrocator (1981)
Years before GPS became widely available, this was the world’s first automotive map-based navigation system. Based on the vehicle’s inertia it worked using a series of gyroscopic and distance sensors. It pioneered the on-board display mounted in the dash with the route overlaying a transparent road map.
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Honda Ballade Sports CR-X (1983)
This was Honda’s first CRX, a sporty coupe much loved by boy-racers, and initially branded Ballade in Japan. With 135bhp on tap in the later Sport model, it featured an all aluminium 1.6-litre straight four-cylinder engine with three valve head.
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Honda Beat (1991)
The Pininfarina-designed Beat was the last car to be approved by Soichiro Honda before he died in August 1991. The mid-engined, rear-wheel drive two seat roadster was the first sports car to be built by Honda since the S800 finished production in 1970 and featured a 656cc three cylinder engine with belt drive transmission. A hoot to drive, this 760kg 63bhp machine could reach an electronically-governed 84mph top speed.
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Honda Insight (1999)
In reply to the Toyota Prius which appeared in 1997, Honda launched its hybrid based on the J-VX concept. It was the first use of Honda’s Integrated Motor Assist. This car featured an electric motor between the engine and the transmission, and with a 0.25 drag coefficient the Insight was the most aerodynamic car in production at the time.
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Honda Legend (1985)
The Legend was the result of a partnership with Britain’s Rover to produce a luxury flagship model for Honda and successor to the SD1 for Rover. Cars were built in the UK under both the Legend and Rover 800 name, and were sold in the US under the Sterling name. It was initially powered by a 2.5-litre V6 engine driving the front wheels and though the Legend set new reliability standards, the 800 unfortunately did not.
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Honda Dream D (1949)
This is where it all began for Honda: its first complete motorcycle. Before this Soichiro Honda had been using a small engine used by the military to power field radio equipment, reworking it for auxiliary bicycle propulsion. The new motorbike featured a two-stroke 98cc single-cylinder engine and a pressed steel frame well suited to mass production.
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Honda RA series of F1 cars (1964-68)
Honda built its first F1 car in 1964, the RA271. When a new 3.0-litre engine for 1966 became available a brand new car was needed and the RA 273 was built. Retaining a V12, the engine was now mounted longitudinally but it was heavy and struggled to be competitive.
A new lighter chassis was built for 1967, the resulting RA300 saw British driver John Surtees took a win with it at the Italian Grand Prix. There was more power for the following year’s RA301 but unreliability plagued the team all year and Honda bowed out of F1 at the end of the 1968 season.
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Spirit Honda 201C (1983)
After 15 years away from F1 Honda returned to supplying F1 engines, now to small British team Spirit. Debuting at the British Grand Prix in the hands of Swedish driver Stefan Johansson, it was a small sign of things to come. However for now at least success eluded it, and its powerful twin turbo-charged 1.5-litre V6 engine failed to win either the team or Johansson any championship points.
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Williams FW09 (1984)
Reigning world champion Keke Rosberg secured Honda’s first win on its return to F1. With the more established team of Williams and the FW09, he scored a victor at the American Grand Prix in Dallas. However the car was unpredictable to drive even for the Flying Finn and Rosberg could only manage 8th place overall at the end of the season in the driver’s championship.
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Williams FW11 (1986)
The FW11 was Nigel Mansell’s F1 car for the 1986 season, and with team mate Nelson Piquet it led Honda to its first-ever Constructors’ Championship that year. As well as advanced aerodynamics courtesy of Patrick Head and Frank Dernie, its enormously powerful twin-turbo 1.5-litre Honda V6 could deliver up to 1200bhp in qualifying and 800bhp at 12,000rpm in the race.
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Honda Indy 500 winner (2004)
Honda’s highly successful 3.0-litre V8 race engine took the top seven positions for the 2004 Indy 500. It was so dominant that the following year both Toyota and Chevrolet bowed out of the Indy Car series leaving Honda as the sole engine supplier for a full five years.
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Honda RA106 (2006)
The first Honda works F1 team since 1968 featured drivers Jenson Button, which it had inherited when it bought the BAR team in 2005, and Rubens Barrichello who joined from Ferrari. The car struggled early on in the season but Button achieved three podium finishes, and reached the top step at the Hungarian Grand Prix, placing the Honda team fourth in the Constructors’ Championship for the season.
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Honda NSX Le Mans (1995)
In 1995 Hondas won their GT2 class and finished eighth overall after one of the wettest Le Mans in history. With a stiffened and tuned version of the NSX road car driven by an all Japanese team they beat the Callaway Corvette teams with an engine of less than half the size.
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Motorcycle racing hall
The Honda Collection Hall is split onto two floors with production cars and motorcycles on the first and racing cars and bikes on the second. Here you can see Soichiro Honda’s real passion for racing starting with the RC71 from 1958 in the foreground plus an incredible array of machinery from Grand Prix, Motorcross and Superbike racing.
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The Honda Collection Hall
The museum is open every day 9.30am to 5pm, except on certain holiday days – check website for information. Adult entry fee is Y1000 (about £7), and children cost Y300-500 depending on age. Parking is also Y1000. There is a free audio exhibition guide app in English for self-guided tours.
Honda Collection Hall
120-1 Hiyama
Motegi
Haga District
Tochegi 321-3533
Japan
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