Growing up, we had a 1980 Honda Accord four-door sedan, a rolling tribute to rationality if there ever was one. As reliable as noon and almost as exciting, the Accord was a great, sensible car that defined Honda in my young brain. Perhaps that’s why I’m so smitten with the Honda Vamos, the least-rational four-wheeled Honda ever made. It’s also arguably the least car Honda ever made and sold, at least in terms of how much raw “car” you get for your money. //

Honda made their fun car out of their interesting little mid-engined T360 pickup truck, the first four-wheeled vehicle Honda built, starting in 1963.

The T360 was a really clever design for a little truck, with the engine low and in the middle and plenty of room above it for cab and bed. When the Honda Vamos was introduced in 1970, Honda had only been building cars for seven years, and the tool they used to turn the T360 into the Vamos seems to have been an eraser.