Something you older guys might appreciate.

[deevergote]

Yes, before the Civic, Honda's cars were quite underpowered and undersized by American standards. The S600 was pretty well respected, but it was a bit of an oddball car.

[4CYLPOWER92]

I think the 600 was more of a motorcycle with a car's body. Reliablitly wise...I never heard about them but Toyota definately had to go back to the drawing board when it came to the U.S.

[owequitit]

The early toyota's (I believe late 60's) used to blow a rod through the block because they were not designed for sustained high speeds (resulting in high RPM's) on American freeways. (This info I read in a newspaper artical from the first dealership to sell Toyota's here stateside)
I don't think Honda had anything decent in the U.S. before the debut of the Civic. What was it, the 600 or something like that?

Honda didn't have anything that did enough volume in the US before the Civic. However, their road cars to that point didn't have durability issues.

As for Toyota, those were also relatively limited volume wise, and within a few years, they were making hundreds of thousands of perfectly reliable cars. Their initial misjudgement was more related to the conditions of operation than any inherent lack of ability.

Yes, before the Civic, Honda's cars were quite underpowered and undersized by American standards. The S600 was pretty well respected, but it was a bit of an oddball car.

There were several cars, the N360 is probablly the one you are thinking of though.