Getting Nostalgic at the Honda Museum
Utsunomiya is roughly halfway between the greater Tokyo area and Fukushima, so it was an ideal spot to park up for the night. The next day we had some time to kill, so we decided to check out the Honda Museum as it wasn’t too far from where we stayed.
It’s always a pleasure to spot cool stuff in the wild on our travels.
Check the wheels on the trailer.
On the way, we were stopped des in our tracks by a few crazy looking old Kaido/Haiso machines. I had seen the s13 somewhere online before but wasn’t expecting to see it out here abandoned in the middle of the countryside.
This 13 was such an unexpected sight.
Nature slowly claiming the mega-wide MKI’s
Mad to see the kit flushed onto the body!
There was a Mitsuoka Le-Seyde next to it, based on an s13 chassis. They only produced 500 of these. It was unusual to see a Silhouette style racer built out of an s13 as I would have considered it a bit more modern. A few more cars looked to were dotted around the premiss. The poor Haiso styled crown had seen better days.
How cool is this Le Seyde?
What a scene, one ill never forget.
It was mad seeing these just rotting away in the middle of nowhere, not a human to be seen. I was waiting for the owner to come out and see what we were doing, but there was nothing but 38-degree sun!
The Honda museum is at the Motegi Twin Ring circuit. The surrounding area is something else, endless miles of gorgeous scenery; we didn’t know what to expect here as it was a last-minute idea. Still, we were keen to see the museum, I had seen fantastic photos from cars in there online, and we were buzzing to get inside a lovely air-conditioned building.
Most of the tracks larger tracks have this big entrance, either under a tunnel or up a hill; Motegi was no different. The place is gigantic. I don’t think we truly grasped the size of the site until we started driving around.
This work of art greets you right in the main hallway in the Honda collection.
It was a Friday, and I expected to see a few more people cruising around a bit. The place was more or less deserted. I had no idea Asimo was based here; I remember growing up hearing about him and watching that funny clip of him falling over online and the south park episode where cartman becomes a robot. He was a bit of a celebrity to our generation.
After getting creeps from the friendly Robot, we headed upstairs to check out the museum; I wasn’t expecting them to have every single bike you could have imagined on display. It was indeed something else.
It was so nice seeing all these old machines in pristine condition.
The collection had all sorts of unexpected machines, like this Accord Aerodeck.
This was the first-ever vehicle built by Honda.
Then we got to the F1 cars, Honda has a long history with racing F1, and it was nice to see some of their most iconic machines on display. That John Player special livery is top tier.
We must have stood in awe at this thing for a good twenty minutes.
How these guys used to race in these cars is mind-blowing.
All their old bikes, street bikes, race bikes, what a view. I almost felt a little unworthy of it as I’m sure many bike enthusiasts would kill to see this stuff,
Then they had most of the cars that meant something to them over the years. I found it interesting that they only went up as far as the EK9 with their display. Of course, Flip had to take a look to see if she was mint.
What a lineup!
It was so nice to see this pristine Pre-facelift EK9.
And this Facelift DC2, along with an NSX-R.
Insane.
Each level had a room full of bikes and a room full of cars, and it usually went by era. The top floor reserved only for race bikes, and all the race cars are twelve out of ten.
That’s where things got interesting. Id highly recommends this place for anyone into bikes and cars. Once again, it was too much to absorb in one go. Trying to photograph it and document it on video simultaneously was tough on the brain.
The Rothmans NSR is probably one of my all-time favourites. It was such a joy to see this in real life.
Along with the Repsol liveries.
There was way too much for the brain to process in one go. The bike collection is probably the best part of the collection.
Then it was back to this stuff.
More John Player special goodness.
On the top floor, there was a vast collection of legendary F1 cars. Reuben and I went around giving them a little touch to try to inherit some of the energy! I wasn’t expecting to see some of the vehicles we grew up watching on TV here.
The very same car Senna or Nigel Mansel or Alain Prost drove back in the ’90s, back when racing was thrilling to watch, and the liveries were just as excellent. It was a real treat to see all these cars here in real life, an unexpected high point on this trip. One of many!
Then the iconic Motul Ea civic, one of the leading cars behind the inspiration for the liveries for the Kanjo streetcars, all coming from the one make and race machines of the eighties and nineties.
Gran Turismo music starts playing in my head when I look at these photos.
And then the rest of the lineup, the Jaccs accord driven by Hattori, the NSX piloted by Akira Ida and Tsuchiya for Kunimitsu Takahashi Honda from Gran Turismo two along the legendary Mugen Castrol NSX grom what a lineup!
Talk about being gobsmacked, I really wasn’t expecting this place to be as breathtaking, but it had us floored.
We needed to sit down after that, so we headed to the twin ring to take a look and regroup.
Once we were good to go, we decided to make the drive to Ebisu, we knew we would get there late, but that’s where we would be meeting Chogo from CSS in Nihonmatsu, the town just down from the circuit where we met the guys before.