Vintage Thing No.38 - Honda S-MX

I'd never seen one of these before. I saw it on the industrial estate at Doublebois just up from Adrian Booth's workshop and didn't know what it was, so just had to find out. And after a deal of scrabbling about, I managed to identify it as a Honda S-MX. If you wanted a cube on wheels with an automatic box and fold down futon-style beds inside then this is the car for you. It's a good example of the kind of speciality cars the Japanese do so well. Any other car producing nation would never even try something like this. "Oh no they would say, there'd never be any call for something like that." So despite the slush box, I start to like it because of the odd niche that it's aimed at. There's a kind of "can-do" approach that the designers have followed and I like that.

I was dropping an A series cylinder head off at Adrian's to be reconditioned and he said there was a whole set of camping gear available as standard from the factory with this wagon. To start off with, neither of us reckoned much to it but I was looking at it from the wrong side - the kerb side. The otehr side has a single door and looks much better. I have to admit that it grew on me the more I looked around it, despite the slushbox.

I've never had a good experience with autos. They change gear all by themselves! Most disconcerting. Driving one, reminds me of riding a horse - I only tried it once - because autos feel like they have a mind of there own and - just like a horse - it's not a very big mind.

With a slushbox and the aerodynamics of a small bungalow, fuel consumption is reputedly 25mpg.

But if I stood in the road and admired the offside, it looked so much sleeker simply because it didn't have the vertical lines that extra sets of doors inflict on a car. It's a sliding door, too, on the passenger side only. That's fine in Japan, the Antipodes and the UK (and Anarchadia too incidentally) but no good on the Continent or in the US.

Which side do you prefer? With the tinted windows it looks like a smart little black van from the offside. And this side has much more impact than the nearside and I am perplexed but pleasantly surprised at what a difference the absence of the side doors makes. In fact, to quote David Brown our design lecturer on my Industrial Design/Transport course at Coventry Polytechnic, "I find myself liking it."

Somebody somewhere liked this S-MX sufficiently to personally import it from Japan. It's based on the Honda CR-V and was built from 1996-2006. The engine is a 1973cc (88 x 89) dohc four VTEC B20B unit that pumps out 140bhp and the 4 speed slushbox is stirred with an American style column lever that's like an over grown indicator stalk. There's also air-conditioning and ABS braking. Some even came with a 4x4 option.

The trouble with these MPVs like the S-MX, though, is that their interiors are too smart. They are not really workhorses like I need and not sports cars that I like. They are posh little minibuses and some - like this one - are too posh for even toting dogs and sticky-fingered kids. My old van (a future Vintage Thing methinks) doesn't look as smart as this bit is ssssso much more versatile, even without the designer camping gear (although I admit that this sounds rather fun).

This S-MX had bright yellow seats. My old van just has some off cuts of carpet and when they get oily - and they will - I simply throw them away and get some more. Honda had a reputation for the greyest of grey interiors when the S-MX was introduced and I reckon they were trying to compensate. The inside is the most striking aspect of the S-MX but wouldn't last if I used it as a van for picking up the spare parts I habitually cart around.

I reckon black is the best colour for the S-MX. You can get body kits for them but these are very much a question of personal taste. The S-MX reminds me of a Tonka toy and the more I think about it the more child-like the styling becomes - a car made out of building blocks. Look at it from its best side, though, and it looks like it was drawn by a child who had a highly developed aesthetic sense. Later versions had more circular headlamps that I think improved the looks slightly.

If only the SM-X had a manual box. Then I might be more kindly disposed towards it. The S-MX seems to have been designed as a town car, hence the slushbox, but why make the seats fold down into a bed? Are the traffic jams really that bad in Japan?

I have some Japanese Car Styling magazines for although semi-retired from active participation in industrial design I still take an interest. In one of the old issues is a piece on the S-MX, which was introduced by Honda as a series of new "Creative Movers". Don't you just love the language these firms come up with?

Apparently the S-MX is intended as a car for singles or couples. It was deliberately styled to look "bad", that's "bad" as in Michael Jackson bad. So are we expecting this black S-MX to turn pale and all it's plastic bits drop off? No. Honda build quality is too good for that.

The longer wheelbase F-MX (still based on the CR-V underpinnings shared with the S-MX) is for families with young children. So the S-MX is a kind of starter car and when you get married and settle down with kids you trade up to an F-MX. Yuck!

The S in S-MX stands for Street and the M for Move - Street Move Cross. That's probably a clue as to its intended habitat. But the Honda CR-V - another lifestyle 4x4 like an early Freelander - had a manual box and a similar engine with 7 extra brakes. I dunno how you'd keep the column gear shift. I've nothing against that - just the slushbox on the end of it. Raid the corporate parts bin and you'd have a little van I could be tempted by.

Especially in black.