Honda 1300

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 sport 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.

Frequent changes of plan during development, sometimes made on a daily basis, hampered production. Mr. Honda was adamant the engine needed to be air rather than water cooled, arguing that "since water-cooled engines eventually use air to cool the water, we can implement air cooling from the very beginning. That will eliminate the problem of water leaks, and it will facilitate maintenance. The question here is how to reduce the loud noise characteristic of an air-cooled engine to a level commensurate with a water-cooled unit."

In May 1969, final specifications and prices for the Japanese market were announced. There were originally two engine versions, the "Series 77" with a single carburetor making 100 PS (74 kW; 99 hp) (SAE), and the "Series 99" with four carburetors at 115 PS (85 kW; 113 hp) (SAE) (detuned to 95 PS (70 kW; 94 hp) and 110 PS (81 kW; 108 hp) in December 1969): the less powerful car was listed with four levels of trim offered (Standard, Custom, S and Deluxe), of which the top three were also available with the four carburetor engine. The manufacturer's ex-works prices ranged from ¥488,000 for the entry level "Series 77" standard saloon to ¥710,000 for the "Series 99" Custom saloon. Automatic transmission and air-conditioning were optional. Six of the seven versions offered were priced noticeably above the slower and less powerful Toyota Corolla Deluxe 4-door sedan, then retailing at ¥520,000: for this price Toyota included delivery to the Tokyo area.

The car had been introduced at the Tokyo Motor Show in October 1968, but production only got under way during the early months of 1969. In May 1969 the Honda 1300 went on sale in Japan. It was reported at the time that launch was delayed by a couple of months because company president Soichiro Honda found the styling of the car as presented at the Tokyo Motor Show the previous year unacceptably bland and called for a redesign. It was not lost on contemporary commentators that Honda himself at the time owned and frequently drove a Pontiac Firebird, and the split air intakes on the front of the Honda 1300 as it came to market suggest that Honda design personnel were also aware of the boss's fondness for his Pontiac.

The two-door coupé bodystyle, with a longer and sportier looking front end, was added to the lineup in February 1970. The same two engines 95 and 110 PS (70 and 81 kW; 94 and 108 hp) were on offer in these cars, marketed as the Coupe7 and the Coupe9 with the same trim levels as the 77/99 sedan. A 3-speed automatic transmission was later added as option a month later, exclusively for 77 sedan and Coupe7. The engine power of the automatic models was detuned to 80 PS (59 kW; 79 hp).

In November 1970, the 77 sedan was refreshed with new front facia with round headlights and new taillights, while the four carburetors 99 sedan and 1300 name were dropped. The facelifted coupé arrived in June 1971, rebranded as Coupe Golden Series and Coupe Dynamic Series, replacing the 1300 Coupe7 and 1300 Coupe9 names. The Golden featured the same front facia as the facelifted 77 sedan and sold as Standard, Deluxe and Custom, while the Dynamic retained the same design as before but with new vertical grille and an additional trunk ornament. The trims were also renamed to SL, GT, GL and the four carburetors GTL.

Despite enthusiastic imprecations from Honda's US dealers, the Honda 1300 was not sold in the US. Nor is there evidence of any sustained effort to sell it into Europe. All Honda 1300 built were RHD. In European terms, the car's engine size and dimensions would have placed it in the competitive sector of small 1300 cc family sedans, although its 57-inch (1,400 mm) width, reported to have been selected in order to qualify for the lower tax class on the domestic (Japanese) market, was significantly below the European standard represented by cars such as the Ford Escort of the time. The 1.3 litre engine displacement also gave Japanese buyers tax savings when the annual road tax was due over competitors with larger engines. Surviving examples outside Japan appear mostly to be located in countries bordering the Pacific Ocean. According to Australian Bureau of Statistics, 731 unit of 1300 coupés were sold in Australia from 1969 to 1973.

The engine was SOHC and air-cooled, with a fan attached to the flywheel to pull cool air through the engine block. Honda labeled this Duo Dyna Air Cooling (DDAC). The air that had absorbed heat from the engine block, and additional hot air from around the exhaust manifold, was then used to heat the passenger compartment, a novel approach which was not commonly used afterward. Hideo Sugiura, then the head of the R&D Center, looked back upon the sentiment of the time: