The Honda S660 is a pure driver's car.
Let's be honest here, you aren't buying this Kei car for the reduced tax in Japan; at nearly 2 million Yen base (about 18,150 USD at the time of writing), you aren't saving much money even with a JC08 fuel economy of 21.2km/ℓ. And if you actually bought the only model that deserves your money, i.e. the 6 speed manual, you're going to want to keep this 658cc turbocharged three cylinder near it's 8,000rpm redline anyway, like any good Honda. You sure aren't buying this thing for practicality, either, because the view out the front of this thing feels like wearing a helmet two sizes too big for your head, the view out the back will trigger complex PTSD of staring down the sight of a rifle for some, the boot looks to be custom made to fit a tiny Ukulele and nothing more, and you get a grand total of ONE drink holder in the cramped cabin of the car. You sure as hell aren't buying this for the speed; a base model Honda Fit Hybrid with seven more drink holders would make the S660 feel like an S60 around Tsukuba, a tight, technical track often used to test low powered cars. And unlike a Porsche or a Ferrari, you can't even buy this thing just for the street cred of owning an expensive, exotic sports car either, because no potential life partner is going to take a look at someone driving an MR car with a 2,285mm (90in) wheelbase and think to themselves, "yes, I do think this person will give me the sense of security and stability I need in a relationship! Let's make babies together right this instant!"
The only, only reason you buy an S660 because it is --BLEEP--ing brilliant to drive.
Tony described the handling characteristics of the RX500 from Week 133 as such: "The handling is wonderful. It feels like it has no vices. The steering is perfect, it has all the good bits of an MR design with no downsides. When it breaks it does so gently and you can mitigate it." I think he either misspelled "S660", or just hadn't driven one yet, because the way he described the RX500 sums up my thoughts on the S660 perfectly. After having driven a Honda Beat, I was utterly convinced that there is no way, no way in hell a MR Kei car would be something that's even safe to drive, let alone fun. Yet, not only is the S660 superbly planted in any situation, but it will also outrun even the most expertly driven of Beats despite having the same power on paper and weighing more. This car... I can't even describe it. I don't claim to even understand it. But it is flipping magic both in the things it can do and the way it can make you feel.
With a 45:55 weight distribution, this rear mid engined car is shockingly balanced. The front end slices into the apex of a corner without any ambiguity or hesitation, and the rear end never threatens any shenanigans. Despite this, the rear end of the car can be wonderfully cooperative with rotating the car if you do decide to be boorish with your engine braking and steering inputs, while always being within an arm's reach of returning to the straight and narrow — almost literally. I legitimately have no idea how Honda engineers have managed to imbue a short wheelbase MR car with such confidence inspiring, intuitive handling. I know it has 195 section tyres in the rear. I know it has McPherson Struts all four corners. I know it has astounding chassis rigidity. I know it has some brake vectoring thing. I know it's supposed to have some flip up spoiler that doesn't work in the game. But even considering all this, it's still hard to wrap my head around this little package of what can only be described as magic. The edges of the car are so close to you as a driver, they feel as intuitive and easy to understand as a tool right at your fingertips. This car is so easy to place, so fun to pry and burrow through small gaps in traffic with, it's almost like a motorcycle, and it encourages almost the same recklessness as one as well. It's such a toy, this thing.
The engine, despite losing out on the traditional purity of being Naturally Aspirated like Honda's best sports cars, is nonetheless a treat to experience and operate. Sure, the sound is muffled a bit, but it makes peak torque of 104 N⋅m (76.7lbf⋅ft) at lazy 2,500rpm while making drivers work it hard for its peak power of 63HP (47kW) at 7,000rpm, resulting in an engine that, unlike the high revving NA engines of Honda's bygone era, is a peach to operate in city commutes, while still abiding by the good parts of tradition by loving to be kept near its redline on the track. As with any Kei car, the S660 is very much a "momentum car", not just because it has no power and therefore emphasises minimising braking and preserving speed through corners via making use of millimetres of the track that seemingly didn't exist for other larger cars, but also because how you can almost use the speed to help the rear end rotate into and out of corners without much worry of it breaking away from you. To this end, Honda has helpfully fitted a large, centre mounted godsend of a digital speedometer, to help you monitor every sacred km/h you can hang onto for each corner better than any analogue speedo could. The tachometer however, is a little weird in the car. It starts flashing at 7,000rpm, which is as aforementioned, where the engine makes peak power, but that's also a whole thousand revs below the redline of the car, meaning it'd take some conscious effort to get used to and becoming very intimately familiar with the exact note of the car's 8,000rpm scream if you don't want to keep your eyes glued to the tach to leverage the much needed mechanical advantage of a lower gear. In Sport Mode, the tach glows all red to signify aggression and power, but it just feels at an odd clash with my favourite body colour of the car, Premium Beach Blue Pearl, an extra cost option on the already costlier α trim of the car, which lets you spec very welcome leather seats in the car seemingly designed to complement said paintjob, while providing much needed breaking up of the otherwise drab black interior.
Being the top of the line α trim, the S660 in this game also comes with carbon fibre accents on the steering wheel, dash, and door cards. Must-spec contrasting metallic silver and black wheels, along with any paint scheme involving hue, are also on the list of reasons why the costlier α trim is the only one worth getting, because the β spec of the car is only available with Premium Star White Pearl, Premium Mystic Night Pearl, and Admiral Grey Metallic, only the last of which isn't an extra cost option. What a ripoff for a car that needs to stand out in bright colours. For the Honda geeks out there, Carnival Yellow II is perhaps the colour of choice, a direct reference to the hue offered on the Beat some 20 years ago. In fact, I kinda wish Honda went full 90s NSX with the colour options on the S660, because I don't think an Estoril Turquoise Pearl II or a Newer Imola Orange Pearl would look amiss on this car, especially with the contrasting black cloth top just like the NA NSXes. Perhaps even a Championship White...?
Unfortunately, the cloth top cannot be repainted or have decals applied on them, unlike that of the Beat's, which means Modulo replicas aren't possible in this game, which is a crying shame. Also, while I'm nitpicking, the windshield glass of the car feels almost... too clear? Too transparent? If you race this thing with the sun in the sky, it looks so bright outside it's almost as if the entire world outside your tiny car is being set ablaze. It's such a shame, because Kei cars usually have excellent visibility and are such a joy to race in cockpit view. But not only is the S660 difficult to see out of in this game, but what little you do manage to see only serves to sear your retinas anyway.
Honda Beat cockpit view (Screenshot, not photo mode. No edits):
Honda S660 cockpit view (Screenshot, not photo mode. No edits):
Aside from small nitpicks like the tach, the ripoff options that should've been standard, livery editor shortcomings, and oddly enough, the windshield of all things, I really don't have anything bad to say about the S660. It's magic. I mean, sure, it's so slow a Honda Fit would outrun it. But it's such a tightly knit, rewarding drive, the likes of which makes an ND Roadster feel like an overweight, sloppy pig in comparison. If the low power output is off putting to you, Option will twincharge the 658cc engine to produce over 200PS, for the sort of crazed person who wants to test the limits of magic. If I had ¥3.2 Million (21,168 USD at the time of writing, ouch) too much in my bank and a 895 x 1215 x 1020 mm gap in my garage that already has my weekday needs catered to, I would buy the swansong version of this car, the Modulo X Version Z, in 0.660 of a heartBeat. And why wouldn't you? With Honda announcing that they're ceasing production of yet another one of their sensational drivers' cars, this time with a dark future of electric cars looming over the horizon, this really might be the last time Honda makes a true drivers' car, and it's highly unlikely the Kei car will have a future hell bent on big, heavy electric cars whose only selling point is their 0-100 sprint times. Forget the kidney grille M4, ignore the twitchy, tail happy Supra, and get one of these. Let Modulo or Option loose on it if you have to. Just snap one up while you can, for the love of all that can be considered dear and holy, because the S660 is nothing else but a pure drivers' car that needs to be celebrated and remembered.
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