Green light for the Honda S1000, the version of the S660 aimed at overseas markets

While Honda was putting its new S660 through its paces in February on the wintry Takasu track on the island of Hokkaido, the Australian outlet Motoring claimed to have learned from a source at the brand that a more powerful version of the model was in the works at its R&D centre in Tochigi.

As reported this month by that website and the Japanese magazine Best Car, those facilities have confirmed that Honda has approved the launch of this variant. It will be called the S1000 after the engine that will power it, the one-litre turbocharged VTEC with a turbocharger that the company announced in November 2013. Best of all, this engine will make the model suitable for sale outside Japan.

From 2016, the S1000 will share this new member of the Earth Dreams Technology family with the small MPV Freed that Honda sells in Japan. The exact power output it will deliver in the S1000 has not yet been calculated. The brand recently experimented with a unit of this 1.0 VTEC fitted to a Civic that produced around 140 CV, more than double what the S660’s 0.66-litre engine delivers.

This higher-performance version will show its superior technical specification on the outside through a body fifteen centimetres longer and twenty wider. The recipe will be accompanied by larger tyres and a closed roof fitted with an air intake to help improve cooling of the engine.

Honda has not given any further details about the sales strategy it will adopt to export the S1000. The S660 in its most basic trim costs 1.98 million yen in Japan, around 15,400 euros at the current exchange rate. Motoring predicts that the price difference compared with the S1000 will exceed 800,000 yen, that is, around 6,200 more expensive than the S660.

Via | Motoring