CarBrandLogos archive · Honda · 1963

HondaT360

Honda's first production four-wheeler was a kei truck with a race-bred twin-cam four.

Photo: baku13 · CC BY-SA 2.1 jp

The story

A defining chapter in Honda history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Honda T360, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Honda's move into cars was resisted by Japan's trade ministry, which wanted to consolidate the industry rather than let a motorcycle maker join it. The company's response was to get something, anything, into production quickly, and the something was a kei-class truck that went on sale in June 1963, ahead of the S500 sports car.

Honda T500 · KzaralCropped by uploader Mr.choppers · CC BY 2.0

Design and engineering

The engineering was absurd for the job. Instead of a simple side-valve or two-stroke, the T360 carried a 356 cc twin-cam four-cylinder with four carburettors, derived directly from Honda's motorcycle racing practice and revving far beyond anything a farmer would use. Mounted amidships under the load bed and driving the rear wheels through a four-speed gearbox, it gave the truck a top speed and a noise entirely out of keeping with its half-tonne payload. A 531 cc version, outside kei limits, was sold for export as the T500.

Honda T360 Snow Crawler at MMo J · Kzaral · CC BY 2.0

In production

It was not a commercial triumph, and the successor TN360 of 1967 reverted to a sensible air-cooled twin. But it established Honda as a car manufacturer against official advice, and it demonstrated the pattern the company followed for decades: solve a mundane problem with engineering borrowed from racing, and let the customer work out whether they needed it.

At a glance