The engine is small, the performance lively and the personality endearing.

A young man named Hugh Nutting called us one day and volunteered the use of his Honda S-600 for a road test. Hugh had recently returned from a 2-year tour of duty with the US Armed Forces in Japan and had brought the S-600 back with him.

"Cute" (in the appreciative sense) is as good a word as any to describe the size and styling of the S-600. The owner paid the equivalent of $1600 for his S-600 in Japan, including about $200 in taxes.

The engine illustrates the point. Everything about it bespeaks sound engineering, high-quality production and excellent workmanship.

Driving the S-600 is highly enjoyable - provided you like sports cars with buzzy little engines. This qualification cannot be ignored because that small engine is really singing away as it whirls out the many-thousand revs necessary to wind the car down the road.

With the lightness of the engine, good breathing and low friction losses, the engine revs very freely. The clutch action is excellent, incorporating just the right amount of feel to get away smoothly even without practice, which is a bit unusual for a car with such a small engine.

There's no burning of rubber but the S-600 scampers along to good effect and is great fun to drive. The steering and handling of the Honda aare excellent by any standards and, frankly, are more reminiscentof the much more expensive Lotus Elan than the cars in its own price class.

It hangs onto the road in a completely reassuring way and the independent rear suspension, designed to handle the ppoor surface of the average Japanese road, doesn't readily lose its poise even on chattery turns.

** Editors note: I was very pleased to correspond with Hugh Nutting today (April 14, 2003). He wanted to add the following information:

One more thought about statement in the 'test' copy. I drove the test run. Then Dean took it for a spin. His first comment was, "its most like a Lotus Elan". I said," Yes, Mr. S. Honda owns one".