A very special Honda will be making a once-in-a-lifetime journey from Italy to California for this year’s Monterey Car Week. The Japanese automaker’s first-ever concept car, the gloriously wedgy 1984 Honda HP-X Concept, will be displayed on the famous lawn as part of the Wedge-Shaped Concept Cars and Prototypes class at the 73rd Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.
The mid-engine car was designed by none other than Pininfarina in the early ’80s and shown to the world for the first time at the 1984 Turin Motor Show. In terms of design, the HP-X was a wild departure from anything Honda—or any Japanese car company—had done at the time, featuring a radical wedge shape and fighter jet-inspired interior. It’s easy to see the Italian influence in its design, given the popularity of cars like the Lamborghini Countach and Ferrari Testarossa back then. Unlike those, however, this was a real concept car, meaning it had some truly radical characteristics. For example, the HP-X doesn’t have any doors. Instead, it sports a removable single-piece Perspex canopy.
Its name stands for “Honda Pininfarina eXperimental” and the automaker claims that it preceded the development of Honda’s first-ever supercar, the NSX. The mid-mounted engine is a 2.0-liter, 24-valve V6 based on an F2 racing engine from that era, and although there are no performance specs, the HP-X interestingly features a driver-controlled air brake found in the fairing.
A couple of things stand out about Honda’s first-ever concept car, and one of them is exactly that. Honda didn’t roll out a concept car until 1984! By then, it had been building engines and motorcycles for nearly 40 years, and building trucks and cars for around 20 years. Also, I love the fact that it approached Pininfarina for its first concept car, proving that Soichiro Honda and his team had great taste. Had it been designed in-house or by another company, there’s a chance we may not be talking about it right now.
“The Honda HP-X is an ideal example of Pininfarina’s unique ability to present innovative ideas through concept cars that set future trends,” said Felix Kilbertus, Pininfarina’s chief creative officer. “At Pininfarina, we strive to infuse our values of design excellence into every project, ensuring that the essence of the brand we collaborate with remains intact, while confidently looking ahead. The HP-X did not go into production as such, but its influence on subsequent Honda models and the broader automotive landscape is undeniable. It stands as a testament to both Honda’s and Pininfarina’s innovative spirit, inspiring future developments in the automotive industry.”
The HP-X’s design may have proved too extreme to reproduce on any scale, but the concept helped bring other concepts forward. According to Honda, the “technologies and engineering principles” applied here were directly applied to the NSX, more specifically the mid-engine, two-seat layout.
Kudos to Honda for going through all the trouble (and expense) of restoring it to perfection and bringing it to Pebble Beach for people to admire. It’s always great to see Japanese brands investing in sharing their rich culture in North America as the European brands do.
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