honda historians required!

jim beam > wrote:
> wrote:
> maybe, but the first model imported wasn't the civic was it? and it
> would be good to get some more car history in there - it's currently
> very motorcycle-centric!

Sorry, I thought you knew, and were just taking a poke at Wikipedia.

The first officially imported Honda car in the US was the N600 followed by
the Z600, a minuscule coupe with a twin cylinder 600cc motor that looked
like a motorcycle engine. The car I knew fairly well would actually list
to the left when its owner got in. I don't think they were at all popular,
and I remember when the Honda Civic was introduced. The same guy traded in
his Z600, which had over 100,000 miles on it, on a Civic. He didn't like
the newer car, too pedestrian ;-)

So the phrase "gained a foothold with the Civic", seems to be true.
A couple of other sites skip the N600 altogether, even if they mention the
S500 in a timeline.

Prior to that, although not officially imported, there was an S500 roadster
that I remember from the one of the sales guys at Berkeley Honda
(Motorcycles) brought in gray market in the 60's.

http://www.histomobile.com/histomob/...44/histo02.htm

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8,-122.5

wrote:

> jim beam > wrote:
>
wrote:
>>maybe, but the first model imported wasn't the civic was it? and it
>>would be good to get some more car history in there - it's currently
>>very motorcycle-centric!
>
>
> Sorry, I thought you knew, and were just taking a poke at Wikipedia.
>
> The first officially imported Honda car in the US was the N600 followed by
> the Z600, a minuscule coupe with a twin cylinder 600cc motor that looked
> like a motorcycle engine.

Probably was.

Smaller than a Civic? The mid 70's Civics were so small you didn't get
into them so much as put them on.

wrote:
> jim beam > wrote:
>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda#Company_history
>
>
>>the civic wan't the first honda automobile sold in the u.s. can someone
>>please fix this wikipedia page?
>
>
> I think you are paraphrasing the article incorrectly. The phrasing looks
> accurate to me. Wikipedia isn't the first place I've seen that narration.
>
> I knew a guy that was about 6'2"/250 pounds that owned the first officially
> imported US Honda model. Looked a little odd.
>

wasnt the first model an s500 or s750, based on a motorcycle engine?

jim beam > wrote in news:ZPidnUT-ht-SKoHeRVn-
:

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda#Company_history
>
> the civic wan't the first honda automobile sold in the u.s. can someone
> please fix this wikipedia page?
>
>



The page is actually correct.

"Honda was having difficulty selling its automobiles in the United States.
Built for Japanese buyers, Honda's small cars had failed to gain the
interest of American buyers."

This is correct.

"Honda finally established a foothold in the American market in 1972 with
the introduction of the Civic, larger than their previous models, but still
small compared to the typical American car"

This is correct as well. It doesn't actually say that the Civic was the
first car, just that it was the first /successful/ one.

What I think needs double-checking is this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Honda_engines
which may well be correct, but is the sort of page that is more likely to
ontain errors and omissions.


--
TeGGeR®

The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ
www.tegger.com/hondafaq/

Sparky Spartacus > wrote in
:

> jim beam wrote:
>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda#Company_history
>>
>> the civic wan't the first honda automobile sold in the u.s. can
>> someone please fix this wikipedia page?
>
> The Civic is the first Honda I remember seeing or hearing of in the
> US.
>


Honda sold several tiny air-cooled models prior to the Civic. dold is
correct so far as I'm aware.


--
TeGGeR®

The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ
www.tegger.com/hondafaq/

wrote in :

> Elmo P. Shagnasty > wrote:
>
>> A wikipedia is nothing but the Usenet, distilled into a concentrated,
>> putrid form, full of the same crap from know-nothing people but stuck
>> all in one place for the mass of sheeple to conveniently browse in a
>> timely fashion.
>
> I don't understand why wikipedia even exists. It's a distillation of a
> Google Search, in some sense, but whoever gets there first is the
> authority, unless challenged. The only intelligence there is plagarism.
>


The advantage, though, is that errors can be corrected or added to by
ANYONE. Errors in Britannica print encyclopedias stay there for a decade.

You, Clarence, have something to add that is not currently there, the list
of models older than the Civic. Why don't you add it?

--
TeGGeR®

The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ
www.tegger.com/hondafaq/

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
> In article >,
> wrote:
>
>
>>I don't understand why wikipedia even exists. It's a distillation of a
>>Google Search, in some sense, but whoever gets there first is the
>>authority, unless challenged. The only intelligence there is plagarism.
>
>
> Absolutely.
>
> And yet, we're going to have 10 years of students using wikipedias as
> their research sources. The smarter students will simply write
> something down, go enter it into a wiki, then claim the wiki as proof of
> what they wrote.
>
> There *is* a reason for the editorial process.
>
the only reason for putrifaction is that ****ants sit on the side lines
and won't do anything about it. i contribute to wikipedia on the stuff
where i have expertise. if you have the same, and you see stuff you
don't like, fix it. if you don't, you have no business complaining.

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
> In article >,
> jim beam > wrote:
>
>
>>>There *is* a reason for the editorial process.
>>>
>>
>>the only reason for putrifaction is that ****ants sit on the side lines
>>and won't do anything about it. i contribute to wikipedia on the stuff
>>where i have expertise. if you have the same, and you see stuff you
>>don't like, fix it. if you don't, you have no business complaining.
>
>
> You can't fix something like a wiki, where the ignorant masses can--with
> their total and complete ignorance--create such a huge mound of garbage.
> I can go in and correct errors, but I'm wasting my time--because all it
> takes is one know-it-all who doesn't (or one ass playing games) to undo
> it.
>
> You may think that the cream will rise to the top, but what will
> actually rise to the top is the ignorance of the masses who thought they
> heard something from a friend of a friend of his dentist's mechanic.
>
> The existence of urban legends, and the popularity of snopes.com and its
> ilk, is proof that wikis are nothing but garbage.
>
urban legend? honda on wikipedia? can't fix anything? that's way off
base.

there's some truly great stuff on there. the cream /does/ rise to the
top. sure, it can be vandalized, but repair is just as easy, and from
what i've seen, where people take the trouble to write good stuff, it
sticks. even controversial subjects where there are many opposing
viewpoints can end up [eventually] with text that sticks...

controversy example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger

not so controversial:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_energy

wrote:
> jim beam > wrote:
>
wrote:
>>maybe, but the first model imported wasn't the civic was it? and it
>>would be good to get some more car history in there - it's currently
>>very motorcycle-centric!
>
>
> Sorry, I thought you knew, and were just taking a poke at Wikipedia.
>
> The first officially imported Honda car in the US was the N600 followed by
> the Z600, a minuscule coupe with a twin cylinder 600cc motor that looked
> like a motorcycle engine. The car I knew fairly well would actually list
> to the left when its owner got in. I don't think they were at all popular,
> and I remember when the Honda Civic was introduced. The same guy traded in
> his Z600, which had over 100,000 miles on it, on a Civic. He didn't like
> the newer car, too pedestrian ;-)
>
> So the phrase "gained a foothold with the Civic", seems to be true.
> A couple of other sites skip the N600 altogether, even if they mention the
> S500 in a timeline.
>
> Prior to that, although not officially imported, there was an S500 roadster
> that I remember from the one of the sales guys at Berkeley Honda
> (Motorcycles) brought in gray market in the 60's.
>
> http://www.histomobile.com/histomob/...44/histo02.htm
>
excellent!

Back in my autocross days (mid to late 1960's) when I was running an
Austin Mini, one of regular participants had a Honda S600 (this was a
convertible). I am not sure if this was offically imported or not--my
guess is not.

Ken

wrote:
> jim beam > wrote:
>
wrote:
>>maybe, but the first model imported wasn't the civic was it? and it
>>would be good to get some more car history in there - it's currently
>>very motorcycle-centric!
>
>
> Sorry, I thought you knew, and were just taking a poke at Wikipedia.
>
> The first officially imported Honda car in the US was the N600 followed by
> the Z600, a minuscule coupe with a twin cylinder 600cc motor that looked
> like a motorcycle engine. The car I knew fairly well would actually list
> to the left when its owner got in. I don't think they were at all popular,
> and I remember when the Honda Civic was introduced. The same guy traded in
> his Z600, which had over 100,000 miles on it, on a Civic. He didn't like
> the newer car, too pedestrian ;-)
>
> So the phrase "gained a foothold with the Civic", seems to be true.
> A couple of other sites skip the N600 altogether, even if they mention the
> S500 in a timeline.
>
> Prior to that, although not officially imported, there was an S500 roadster
> that I remember from the one of the sales guys at Berkeley Honda
> (Motorcycles) brought in gray market in the 60's.
>
> http://www.histomobile.com/histomob/...44/histo02.htm
>