The Honda Life is an automobile nameplate that was used on various kei car/city cars produced by Honda: passenger cars, microvans, and kei trucks. The first series of the nameplate was built between 1971 and 1974, with the nameplate revived in 1997 and used until 2014. The Japanese-market Life has rarely been marketed outside Japan.
In 2020, Dongfeng Honda revived the "Life" nameplate in China as a rebadged variant of the Fit produced by Guangqi Honda.
First generation (1971)
The original Life range was offered as a two-door or four-door hatchback and in a three-door wagon model (also sold as a commercial van), replacing the Honda NIII360. Compared with the previous Honda minicar series, passenger comfort was improved to make this a better family car - indeed, Honda's target was to make a kei which was as habitable as a period 1-liter car. The wheelbase, at , was eight cm longer than that of the predecessor. The entire Life range had a water-cooled Honda EA 356 cc engine, usually producing at 8,000 rpm. which began as the air-cooled engine borrowed from the Honda CB450 motorcycle. The top speed of the sedan is . The sprint to 100 km/h (62 mph) came up in 34.9 seconds in a period test. In September 1972, the tall and curiously shaped "Life Step Van" was introduced, with either three or five doors. A pickup version of this was later added to the lineup, but had minimal impact on the market.
The engine was also installed with a balance shaft to reduce vibration. The engine was called "refined" in period tests, and was considered to be as quiet and smooth as some four-cylinder engines. The change to a water-cooled engine also eliminated the smell in the heating system commonly associated with air-cooled engines that drew the heated air into the passenger compartment. Another improvement was that the gearbox was separate from the engine, unlike in the N-series where the gearbox was in the sump (as for the original Mini). Production of the Life coincided with the larger Honda Civic with both vehicles having introduced a timing belt (rather than chain) for the operation of the overhead cam.
This version of the Life was exported to a few markets such as Australia, where the four-door version (same specs as in the Japanese version) entered the market in the middle of 1972. The two-door N360/600 continued on sale alongside. The Life was only produced for four years, as the Civic proved to be much more popular both in Japan and internationally, and when the decision was made to cancel the Life, it ended Honda's production of a passenger kei car until 1985, with the introduction of the Honda Today. At the time, the Life was ¥350,000, and the Civic was ¥400,000. The Civic also had an advantage of size, making the car safer in a collision.
Development
1971, June 1
The Life emerged as the successor to the Honda NIII360. It was fitted with a series of newly designed two-cylinder 356 cc SOHC, liquid-cooled four-stroke engines equipped with a balancer shaft. For strictly urban use, a lower-revving engine with a lower compression (8.0:1, as opposed to 8.8:1 for the higher powered version) was installed in the "Life Town". For this version, which was a no-cost option across the range, the engine output was dropped to at 6,500 rpm - as opposed to 8,000 rpm for the high-compression unit. It also received a three-speed transmission, meaning that top speed was limited to 90 km/h. 1971, July 20 An all-new, three-speed, fully automatic transmission was made available. Unlike the manual, the automatic's shifter was column-mounted.