A Kei car is the only way to experience Japan.
Forget carving Hakone in an RX-7, gliding along the Wangan in an R34 GT-R, or grumbling through Shibuya in a Supra. The Honda N-One RS with a manual transmission is perfectly built to traverse the great Nippon.
Over 500 hundred miles, on a trip from Tokyo’s sprawling metropolis to the quiet, Miyazaki-esque mountains of Gunma, the N-One acquitted itself honorably, betraying its outward appearance as a toy car on forklift tires. It might look diminutive, but this minuscule hatchback is one of the most clever, charming, and excellent vehicles I’ve ever driven.
It’s all built on simple, austere genius. Kei cars, short for Kei-jidōsha (compact automobile), are a pillar of Japanese mobility. The category was invented by the post-war Japanese government in 1949 to encourage people to buy cars and stimulate local manufacturing. From the beginning, it was conceived as a class of exceptionally small cars with unique benefits, like drastically reduced registration and tax costs.
Since then, the class has evolved into the restrictive ruleset of today:
- No More Than 660cc of Engine Displacement
- No More Than 64 horsepower
- 11.2 Feet long, 4.9 Feet wide, 6.6 Feet tall
- Be Extremely Adorable (not a requirement but definitely a result)
In Japan, the rules are quite different from the United States. Us Westerners may see it as the land of heroic performance cars, but the Japanese government would rather people be in newer, cleaner, and more-efficient cars than keep their old ones on the road.
As such, cars in Japan are taxed based on size, displacement, and age, with older cars seeing a significant hike. Most expressways in Japan are toll roads with varying rates based on size. Then there’s the infamous shaken vehicle inspection, which is stringent and often removes older cars from the road. On top of that, to own a car in Japan, you have to prove that you own a parking space in which to park it.
Kei cars like the N-One sidestep or drastically reduce most of these penalties. They’re much cheaper to buy, own, and store than even a traditional compact car like a Honda Fit or Civic. They’re often less than $10,000 new, and sporty Kei cars like the Honda S660 cost the equivalent of $18,000 new. And you don’t need to own a parking space to buy one, which is a huge boost in Japan’s dense cities.
Even with an incredibly healthy and diverse enthusiast scene, something becomes incredibly obvious after driving just a short while in Japan: Kei cars are everywhere. Sure, the taxis are Toyota sedans and minivans, and you get a healthy amount of small SUVs, but the Kei car is the king of Japanese roads. During my trip to Japan, I tried four different cars: A Toyota GR86, this N-One, a Honda Civic Type R, and an E90 BMW M3. By a country kilometer, the N-One was the most fun, usable, easy, and sensible car for Japan.
The roads are small, and folks drive in an orderly and calm way. Speed limits are obeyed. Courtesies, like flashing the hazards after a polite lane change, are observed. America’s pervasive sense of lawlessness and individualism is conspicuously absent from Japan. I could argue that in America, you do need at least 300 horsepower to be worthy of space on the road. In Japan, the N-One’s 60-odd horses were plenty. The point is—Japan is built around the Kei car.
Perhaps my experience was heavily colored by the fact that even the GR86 would break the law after brief acceleration, with the national expressway speed limit being a mere 100 km/h (62 mph) and most country roads adopting a 50 km/h (31 mph) limit. The Type R and the M3? Forget about it. Where in the N-One, with its wonderful little six-speed manual gearbox and charismatic three-cylinder engine, I could absolutely rail every shift up to fifth and just about get to highway speed.
On the tōge, it was the same story. At 25 mph, the N-One would reach its lateral limit, all while racing through second, third, and fourth between every hairpin. Okay, the driving position is a bit like a microbus, with the pedals close, the steering column inclined aggressively without much telescope, and a tall seating position.
But, it makes up for it by placing the shifter less than a hands-width away from the wheel and excellent pedal positioning for heel-toe downshifts. The N-One’s throttle calibration allows a satisfying and aggressive blip at all RPMs and speeds, making around town cruising as engaging as going full Eurobeat on a mountain road.
The little box car wraps it up nicely by being a genuinely pleasurable road tripper. On my 300 expressway miles, it was legitimately quiet at 70 mph, and it returned a frankly unbelievable average of 47.2 mpg after my entire trip of mixed city, highway, and mountain driving. It fit four people and their luggage, and delivered me to many onigiris, egg salad sandwiches, and katsu curries. Most importantly, the N-One made me feel more aligned with Japan than the biggest and baddest performance cars out there.
When I first retrieved it from the basement of Honda’s global headquarters, I wished for one thing: Please don’t let this car be a remedial exercise. I wanted it to be good on merit, not just because of the novelty of being a Kei car in a faraway land.
With joy I can report the N-One RS is delightful. It’s somehow everything all at once: The plucky underdog mixed with the excellence and majesty of a more expensive, larger car. It has character oozing from its gearbox and engine, and practicality to rival small SUVs. It is just good. No asterisk.
If I ever move to Japan, I know what I’ll be buying. After my S15 Silvia, of course.
