“IT EVEN ENTERED THE CAR IN BATHURST. FINISHING WAS AN ACHIEVEMENT”
Variants in the0 series included a sedan, plus a Coupe 7 (less powerful than the 9) and a 145, or fuel- injected version with a 1.4 litre engine.
In Australia, the Coupe 7 and 9S were sold but with very few brought in. Bennett Honda in NSW seemed to be the prime promoter, but Honda Australia, then in its infancy imported a handful for Victoria, WA and SA.
Bennett even entered a Coupe 9S in the Bathurst 500 endurance race in 1971, where it came 41st in the hands of Ken Brian and Noel Riley. Finishing at all that year was something of an achievement, since there were 10 DNFs, a couple of disqualifications and several did-not-starts!
Right from the start, they were a relatively rare car anywhere, particularly in Australia.
“The man I bought one of mine from tells me there are 10 registered and on the road in Australia,” says Andrew.
“It’s the last car that Soichiro Honda is said to have had a direct hand in. Particularly the front end, which he’s said to have designed after his Pontiac Firebird, which was a favourite car.
“It’s got what was called duo dyna air-cooling, which means it has an air jacket, much like a water jacket in a water-cooled car. There’s a fan that drives air through the jacket.
“Not only that, he wanted to reduce the resonance that cooling fins often develop, so instead of long thin fins, he made short fat ones.”
Okay, we can see the attraction, but why pick this car?
“When I was a very small child my mother bought me a plastic model kit of one. Being a car nut already at a young age, I realised I hadn’t seen one. When I did I wanted to find out more.
“I went to the Sydney Motor Show with the family when I was about 11 or 12 years old, and I found an old Wheels magazine with a road test of a Coupe 9S. After reading it, I decided I have to have one.
“Because they’re so hard to get, I wanted one as my first car. I found one in the
Trading Post, but my dad wouldn’t let me buy it. He called it an orphan: ‘you’ll never get parts and it will be unreliable’. I ended up buying an Austin 1800 instead.” Speaking of unreliable…
“I never lost the desire to have one and here I am 40 years later,” says Ken.
“This is actually made of two cars. My youngest son Daniel saw the advertisement for the first car, and without me knowing he negotiated a price and bought it. He rang me and said, ‘Dad it’s yours, all you have to do is drive to Melbourne to pick it up.’
“So my boss took me down to Melbourne with his LandCruiser and a car trailer. We stripped it back, then my son moved to WA so we weren’t able to continue it together.
“My older son Stephen helped track down another for sale in Melbourne, that was a goer. I bought that sight unseen, and the guy was really honest. He told me it had lots of rust, and it did. But I drove it back to Wagga on a permit and it didn’t miss a beat.
“I took it to a local restorer and, when he looked at it, he found the body was too far gone. He said, ‘shame we don’t have another body’.
“Actually I did! He came and looked and said the second one was far better. So he