1963 HONDA T360

1963 HONDA T360 - First Honda car made caroto.gr
This ad for the Honda T360 mini-truck plays just like an ad for one of today's big American pickups: carrying heavy loads uphill, splashing through water, rumbling over rocky roads, but it does it all in miniature.

Back in 1960 Honda only made motorcycles, they had not started making cars yet. MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) issued an edict that there were only going to be so many car manufacturers. If Honda was ever going to build cars, they were going to have to start building them now, whether they wanted to or not, which led to the S500.

1963 Honda S500

Well, it's snazzy, but how many are they going to sell? Not enough, so they decided to build some light trucks, which got the same dual-overhead-cam, 4 cylinder motorcycle engines that turned 9,000 RPM. Crazy old man Honda. Think he might have been a little obsessed with high revving engines?

Via Road & Track and The Truth About Cars

Update March 2021 replaced missing video.