Start with what the Honda 1300 is: a 2-door coupé (1970–1972) / 4-door sedan (car) / sedan (1969–1972) with 1298 , built from 1969 to 1972, in the decade that gave the world the pony car and the mid-engined supercar. What it meant takes a little longer.
Where it came from
The Honda 1300 is an automobile which was produced by Japanese manufacturer Honda from 1969 to 1972. The largest car manufactured by the company to that point (above the S800 sports car), the front-wheel-drive 1300 was released as a sedan or a coupé, and was intended to compete primarily against other Japanese cars such as the Toyota Corona, Mazda Capella, Mitsubishi Galant, and Nissan Bluebird.
An ambitious project spearheaded by Soichiro Honda, it was plagued by engineering delays and sold at a high price compared to its competition. However, lessons learned from it led to the successful debut of the Life kei car in 1971 and Civic subcompact car in 1972, and to the 1300/145's successors, the Accord and Prelude, in 1976 and 1978.
Under the skin
The engine is 1298 . On the scales it comes to 860-935 kg. Drive goes through a 4-speed manual transmission / manual / 3-speed automatic transmission / automatic. The layout matters: the engine drives the front wheels, the packaging choice that gives a small car a big cabin. The wheelbase is 2250 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
In context
In the Honda line-up the Honda 1300 has a clear place: it handed the line to the Honda 145; the factory was Suzuka Plant, Suzuka, Mie, Japan. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Range Rover Range Rover, the Peugeot 504, the Toyota Hilux. Nearby in the Honda catalogue sit the Honda Envix and the Honda Crider.
Owning one today
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Honda 1300 has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.