This part of a small series of informational passages I'm writing for Granturismox.net. It's basically some background and some history on some of the 700+ cars in Polyphony Digital's new game, Gran Turismo 4 - the latest in the GT series, which dates back to 1998.
Introduced for 1970, the Honda Z coupe was an attempt to do exactly what its competitors were doing - take a standard car and make it into a distinctive coupe. The result, in many cases, was a car that added sales while minimizing development costs. In the case of the Z, the donor car for the mechanical side were Honda's existing N360/N600 two-door sedans.
Development of the Z360 was handled by a specialized design team named "PG" at Honda's Suzuka factory. At the very last minute, Soichiro Honda moved production of the Z to the Sayama factory. This was meant to avoid complication of the product line at Suzuka, where the larger H1300 was being produced. It was also hoped that the Z would fare a bit better quality-wise than the troubled H1300. At the time Honda was a true fledgling company, and the Sayama factory site was split in two with the move of the Z - the second factory became the home of Honda's factory engineering division, which later became Honda's hugely successful engineering consultancy firm.
The Z-act was the original Z, complete with the 354-cc two-cylinder, air-cooled engine. It was only Honda's third mainstream car, the N-series and the H1300 having preceded it, along with the limited-production S-series sports cars in the sixties. Honda was still thought of, at this time, as a motorcycle manufacturer. The Z capitalized on this with its rev-happy two, putting out 32 hp through its front-drive layout, pulling along about 1300 lbs. of car. The overall effect was a nippy, go-kart like machine with quick responses and, for a 360-class Kei, excellent performance.
There were some downsides to the Z - namely it's choppy ride, lack of cargo room, low-rpm vibration, and the need to rev it hard even in regular driving - but the styling wowed the first-time buyer in Japan and the car took on a bit of a cult following. The Z was also known for coming in high-impact colors such as bright orange and lime green. These were especially noticeable in Japan, where most cars tended toward more conservative hues.
The Z-ACT was the original, but the Z came in many forms. Like the N, the Z was exported with a 598-cc version of the air-cooled twin, and it actually did fairly well in the USA, though its limited speed and tiny size assured that it would never be a mainstream choice in America. The Z was also exported to Europe, where it did fairly well for an unproven Japanese brand. In England the Z battled another bright-orange micro - the Bond Bug. Most buyers in the US and Europe did not take the N or the Z very seriously, but they were the first Japanese Kei cars to be exported in any numbers, and they got Honda what it needed most - a public image as more than a motorcycle company. The Z, and the N before it, were also instrumental in setting up Honda's international presence; which would explode with the international introduction of the Civic in 1973 (the Civic was actually introduced in the summer of 1972).
It was, ironically, the Civic that killed off the Z and the N. The Civic was a bonafide world-wide smash, and by the time the Civic was selling well the Z and N were old hat, and too small to be truly successful outside of Japan. US safety and emissions regulations had stopped the export of the Z, where it was popular on the west coast for a time. Honda also had the newer, water-cooled Life as it's mainstream Kei, so the older cars were redundant. The N was quietly dropped and the Z was put on a modified Life platform for a short time, before being layed to rest itself in 1974.
