Andy restores dad’s tiny Honda Z to former glory

Home / Andy restores dad’s tiny Honda Z to former glory

Andy Hale was 12 years old when his parents brought home their new car – a tiny, bright orange 1973 Honda Z.

His parents, Ken and Val, bought it secondhand from a local owner with just under 20,000 miles on the clock and, as he later discovered, some accident damage.

It was 1976, the year of the long hot summer, and Andy remembers thinking what a strange little vehicle it was.

“The thing I always remember most about it as a kid was the console in the roof (pictured), which was absolutely amazing,” he says, chatting at his home on the outskirts of Norwich. “It was like a spaceship to 12-year-old me.

“I can remember being embarrassed on the school run because it was so loud, including in terms of its paintwork, and it was so different that people used to take the mickey.

“Another time I had pleurisy and I was laying across the back seat going to the doctors. I was cursing the rear suspension because every time we went over a bump it really hurt because of the fluid on my lungs.”

But the Honda, powered by a 598cc twin cylinder motorcycle-derived engine, quickly worked its way into the family’s affections and dad Ken couldn’t bear to let it go when it developed clutch problems three years later.

“My dad had fallen in love with it, because it was different, and quirky,” says Andy. “He was always going to do it up, and I remember in the late ‘80s he went into the Honda dealership and gave them a list of parts, and they said ‘oh yeah, we can still get those bits’, in the days when you could. But he never got round to doing it.”

He recalls in the early ‘80s the car being moved from his grandmother’s house to his parents, on a tow rope behind his dad’s rusty old Datsun Bluebird.

“That was an experience because the car wasn’t running at that point, so the servo wasn’t working,” he remembers. “It was the first time I’d ever been behind the wheel in it, and it was scary because I had very little brakes, and just enough battery for the indicators and brake lights to work.”

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For nearly 40 years it languished in various family garages before Andy eventually approached his dad with a plan to rescue the car in which his mum, sadly no longer with us, would run him around as a boy.

The Z, known by various different names including Z Coupe, Z600 and Coupe Z, was manufactured between 1970 and 1973, and was the ‘sporty’ model based upon the N600 saloon, but with servo assisted front discs.

It started life in Japan as a kei car, with an air-cooled 354cc engine married to a four-speed transmission driving the front wheels.

The four-stroke twin engine was bored out to 598cc for the North American and European markets. In the UK, the Z cost £650 new, a little more than a Mini.

Andy’s car dates from August ‘73, the last month of production, and it was originally sold through Chapman’s, a Honda motorcycle dealership in Norwich.

It was in May 2017 that Ken handed the Honda over to his son with the words ‘best of luck’.

Four and a half years later, the car was finally back on the road under its own steam for the first time in 42 years – and, by pure chance, on Ken’s 80th birthday.

“When he first saw it he was flabbergasted,” says Andy. “He couldn’t believe it was the same car, it was quite a transformation. He’s so proud of it – every time I take it round there he always comes out to see it.”

Andy, a commercial manager in the food industry with a background in engineering, is no stranger to small cars.

After cutting his motoring teeth on motorbikes, and racing karts, his first car was a Fiat Panda, his first of no fewer than seven Pandas.

But while he had previously restored bikes, the Honda was his first stab at bringing a car back from the dead.

By the time 2017 rolled around, those parts that had been readily available in the late ‘80s were now incredibly difficult to find.

And many, many parts were needed for a car that gained the nickname ‘flaky’ for its decaying state.

Andy made good use of online forums and Honda car clubs to build up a network of contacts, sourcing parts from all over the world – a gearbox oil seal from a small Italian motorcycle dealership, track rod ends from Japan, tyres from Germany, and pistons and rings, plus sills, from the US.

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“Luckily the outer wings had been taken off and painted, which saved them,” he says, “but I had to get new inner wings at the front, and the inner and outer wheel arches and rear valance were all fabricated using laser cut sheets, which I spent time designing.

“The stainless steel pistons for the front callipers are off the shelf, because they’re exactly the same size as a Jaguar E-Type’s.”

The rotten exhaust was replaced by a company in Nottingham that had an example they could copy, while the ruined brake discs were used as a buck to create entirely handmade replacements.

“I had to get so many bits and pieces made, like the hinges and brackets for the rear window quarter lights, which had all rotted,” says Andy. “Good contacts within the Honda network found me some of the dead stock – things like air and oil filters. I managed to get a batch of 30 oil filters, which is handy because you’re supposed to change the oil every 3,000 miles…”

The engine, having now covered some 50,000 miles, was rebuilt locally while, on the inside, the headlining and sun visors were resprayed by a company a few miles from Andy’s home.

“Fortunately the interior, even though it was filthy, scrubbed up really well,” he adds. “The only thing that had to be replaced was the centre section of the rear seat, where the mice had got in.”

It became clear that the Honda had already been resprayed before Ken and Val bought it, with the near side indicator pod leaning back at a slight angle to signify accident damage.

“I’ve left it like that, because it’s part of the car’s history,” says Andy. “These only ever came into the UK in Pop Orange, which is a great sounding 1970s colour, so I had it resprayed in its original colour.

“The go faster stripes were a dealer fit, so no two cars are quite the same. I got a local company to trace them, and we fitted them as badly as Chapman’s had done back in ‘73. The two sides aren’t the same, but as you never see the two sides together it doesn’t matter.”

Andy’s first ever drive in the restored Honda was to get petrol from a nearby garage. So what was it like?

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“Bloody hell, it was quite daunting,” he laughs. “Partly because I’d rebuilt it, so for the first few journeys I had to keep stopping to make sure nothing was hanging off.

“But also because it’s a crash box with no syncro, so it’s a bit of an art. I always remember teasing my mum when she used to drive us around, because she used to accelerate quite hard, take ages to change gear, then accelerate hard again. I did actually apologise before she died, bless her, because having now driven it I understood.

“I’m actually quite impressed she was able to drive it, because it is quite demanding.”

Weighing only 600kg, the Z is also surprisingly spritely.

“I spoke to dad the other night and he said ‘I used to love driving that’, because he’d sit at the traffic lights and people would look at it, and then the lights change and up to about 30 or 40mph it’s pretty quick,” says Andy. “It used to surprise a lot of people, and he enjoyed that.

“I’m also quite surprised at what it can do. I’ve got up to 70mph and it doesn’t wander, it’s quite stable, and it doesn’t feel like it’s going to explode, but I tend to stick to about 55mph.”

The car is no show queen, with Andy using it regularly, including in winter as long as it’s dry.

“I try to use it two or three times a week – the worst thing you can do is not use it,” he says. “Sometimes I’ll go to a car show and do the shopping on the way back. I’ve had bags of cement in there.

“If I go shopping, I’m usually late back, because there’s usually someone waiting to chat to you, or they want to take a photograph. Most of the time people don’t know what it is, though a lot of people think it’s a Civic because it shares the same indicator pods.”

During Andy’s first ever trip to a car show, he was surprised to be approached by a man who said ‘I know your car’.

“I asked him how and he said ‘I worked at Chapman’s and I remember it because the number plate matched the engine size, and as a young kid you remember those sorts of things’,” he adds. “He was so surprised to see it. He told me his job was to clean the cars, so I joked ‘so it’s your fault it bloody rusted’.”

Andy likes to ask interested onlookers at shows to find the engine’s distributor.

“It’s a little trick I play,” he smiles. “There isn’t one, because it’s a motorbike engine and it uses the old wasted spark principle, one coil, two leads, both of which spark at the same time. The alternator is in the crankcase, and the reverse gear is actually external to the gearbox.”

The car has lost its spotlights, one of which gave up the ghost when Ken first pushed it into his late mother’s garage for storage, but the replacement Mini headlights are significantly better than the old Honda sealed units.

And the only thing on the car that doesn’t work is the interior light switch. Andy may turn to 3D printing for a replacement.

With our chat drawing to a close, Andy reflects on what the car means to him after an association dating back more than half a century.

“It’s a continuation, something I remember as a kid, and it has given me an immense sense of satisfaction getting it back on the road,” he says. “At times when I was out in the garage, scraping all the rust off with the car on its side in the freezing cold I thought, ‘why the hell am I doing this?’

“But it’s nice that my parents never threw it away, and I felt that I had to start what my dad wanted to start, and actually finish it. I have promised my partner I’m not doing another one!”

As for the future, neither of Andy’s daughters seem very interested in the family heirloom.

“That’s quite sad, but someone said to me at one of the shows ‘give them time, they’re young’,” he says. “It would be a real shame to lose the family connection. I have thought about putting it on loan at a local car museum, but I’m going to use it for as long as I can.”