Honda Logo

The Logo first appeared in Japan in 1996 and was never intended to come to the UK.

It was a sedate, around town vehicle which was popular enough and sat in the range below the Civic as the supermini of the range.

Honda had instead of selling the Logo, decided the car for the British market was the Jazz but it came up against a problem: the Jazz and the Swindon production line weren’t ready and there was potential to lose market share to cars like the Punto, Corsa and 206.

Honda decided the answer was simple: to ship over a boat load of Logos to plug that market gap until the Jazz was ready to roll.

The demand wasn’t excessive which meant one boat load did the job for the 9 month stop gap of April 2000 to January 2001, but what of this little flash in the pan and what did Honda put into a car which was dubbed by The Guardian newspaper as ‘painfully bland’.

For such a small car, Honda had big ambitions and saw congestion and the lack of space in built up areas not as a problem, but as an opportunity and they saw the Logo as the answer to the age old problem of needing personal transport in an area where space is at a premium.

First of all, the car design was considered: the body was short with a long, tall cabin. Honda decided to achieve space you had to mimic a skyscraper: go up and not out with an elavated seating position.

Speaking of seating, Honda said they wanted to reduce driver stress, which was why instead of going for paltry little seats, they used the same size seats as a bigger car which could be adjusted with front and rear height adjusters.

Comfort and consideration didn’t stop there and the car is designed with wide opening doors to make the back as accessible as possible plus the boot lid has a lower than average sill to make loading up as smooth as possible.

The interior wasn’t the only concern and the body shell is stiffened with extra strengtheners and the moulded bumpers are styled around high tensile steel beams.

And whilst it’s not top of the thieves wish list, should they be so inclined, they may be foiled by Honda’s rolling code immobiliser and protectors around the door locks.

There are also other bits which make this a really attractive retro vehicle to the modern driver: vented front discs, ABS, power steering and even air con which I rave about later on.

The engine is an allalloy 1343cc single overhead camshaft four cylinder affair. The lightweight design and lower internal friction was said to mean it could and would perform better and use less fuel on those stop start city drives.

Now this is all very impressive but where are they today? In the UK, they are now an incredibly endangered species killed off by corrosion, scrappage schemes and now, the clean air zones which don’t welcome unassuming little cars like this.

Thankfully appreciation is now growing as this fits neatly into the JDM scene, but hurry, the good examples are fast disappearing.