The Japanese have always been good at building cars without fuss. It has to work, it has to work well and it has to serve a clear purpose. The Honda Vamos also had a clear goal: simple and cheap transport, ready to go anywhere and nowhere. Vamos!
In the late 1960s, two striking cars entered the world stage from Germany and France. With the Volkswagen Type 181 (called ‘Thing’ in the US) they breathed new life into the Kübelwagen without using that rather loaded name. In France, the Méhari appeared simultaneously. Both cars that went back to basics. Suitable for extremely basic transport for both private individuals and the armed forces of their home country. Both cars could not only manage on the asphalt, but the light-footed creations also drove nicely on unpaved terrain. Especially the Méhari, which was also available with four-wheel drive. Cheap companions you could get along with well; both the Type 181 and the Méhari were quite successful. More than 140,000 copies of both cars were sold.
No doubt this development was viewed with great interest in Japan, because in 1970 Honda came up with their own ‘Méhari’. The car was christened Vamos, Spanish for ‘to go’. After all, the goal was simple; with the Vamos you could go anywhere and nowhere. For a relative bargain you had a machine that you could simply take from A to B. Volkswagen mainly relied on proven Beetle technology for the Type 181 and Citroën naturally based the Méhari on the extremely successful 2CV. Honda did not have such a legendary basis ready, but of course was already familiar with assembling extremely reliable small engines. Of course, the experience with her motorcycle branch helped enormously. The Vamos was therefore assigned a power source that would not look out of place on a motorcycle: an air-cooled two-cylinder with only 354 cc. It was not specially developed for the Vamos, because the 30 hp block could also be found in the N360, Z360 and TN360. The Vamos also shared its basis with the latter.
The great example
With the small engine in the nose, the Vamos was considerably less fortunate than its French example and certainly less than the Volkswagen. However, there was also a little less to drag. The just under 3 meters long and 1.3 meters wide Vamos weighed just over 500 kilos. The extremely simple removable roof construction with fabric cover did not result in a significant increase in weight. However, it became a bit enthusiastic when four men went on the road. After all, the Vamos was available as a double and as a four-person variant, depending on whether or not you placed the rear seat in it. You can imagine that it was not going to be fast with four men. In addition, the Vamos off the beaten track disappointed a bit. Not least because four-wheel drive was not possible. The Méhari thus made up for its limited power and the Type 181 simply had enough power to keep going with only rear-wheel drive. The Vamos also had smaller wheels, making it more of a kind of golf cart than a car that you also expect to find in the mud.
Although the Japanese were sometimes accused of copying European cars at the time, we can still say that this was only partly the case with the Vamos. Honda remained true to the Japanese Kei Truck frameworks and kept it all even more modest with the Vamos than with the Méhari and Type 181. However, that also meant that it was just not quite it. Reportedly, Honda only sold about 2,500 units of the Vamos and it stopped after roughly three years.
The modern Vamos
Incidentally, just before the turn of the century, the name Vamos returned to the Honda range. This time on a minivan, which was on the market with the necessary side-by-point sessions up to and including 2018. More than the name, this car actually had nothing in common with the original Vamos.