By Peter Fitch, March 31, 2015
So why is it called the S660? Its all to do with Japan’s stringent Kei car (light automobile) regulations which stipulates that cars of this designation can not be more than 3.4 meters long, 1.48 meters wide and have engines no bigger than 3-cylinder-660cc capacities.
Kei cars are all to do with more advantageous taxation and insurance policies and they are very popular in Japan. However they are not so profitable for manufactures like Honda when it comes to exporting becuase these Kei cars do not meet Europe’s strict crash regulations, part of the reason why we don’t get them in the UK.
At least Japanese punters will have a bit of fun because the S660 is rear wheel drive, now you may think the S660’s 63 bhp is laughably and insanely minuscule but if you throw in a low kerb weight of 830kg then you have a pretty good power to weight ratio which calculates into lots of potential fun.
However Honda’s engineers may have tamed the edginess a little with the addition of brake-based torque vectoring which is designed for much more stable cornering. Still a dab of handbrake will loosen things up a little at the back if need be.
The Honda S660 will cost the equivalent of £11k, Honda’s order books are already filling up and the company expects to sell around 800 vehicles per month despite being only able to churn out 600 units per month.


