The Honda Beat is a 2-door roadster from Honda, built from 1991 to 1996, when airbags, anti-lock brakes and Japanese build quality became the world standard. Under the bonnet: 656 cc E07A MTREC I3. Pavel Hušek at Pininfarina drew it.
Where it came from
The Honda Beat is a kei car produced by the Japanese company Honda from May 1991 until February 1996. It is a two-seater roadster with a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout. It was the last car to be approved by Soichiro Honda, before he died in 1991.
In total around 33,600 were made, with roughly two-thirds of these built in the first year of production. The design of the car originated from Pininfarina, who then sold the design plan to Honda. The Honda Beat was one of many cars designed to take advantage of Japan's tax-efficient kei car class.
Under the skin
Power comes from 656 cc E07A MTREC I3. It weighs 760 kg. It shifts through a 5-speed manual. The layout matters: the engine sits behind the driver and ahead of the rear axle, which puts the mass in the middle of the car and is why mid-engined cars change direction the way they do. The wheelbase is 2280 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
In context
Its family tree is legible: its successor was the Honda S660; assembly was at Suzuka Plant, Suzuka, Mie, Japan. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Dodge Viper, the Opel Astra, the Volvo 850 — show what else the money bought that year. Nearby in the Honda catalogue sit the Honda Envix and the Honda Crider.