I've mentioned before how taken I am with Honda's home-market-only N-Box Slash, and now it seems Honda's expressing some envy for an iconic American car affectation: old-school Detroit muscle. Seeing what that actually means when applied to this odd little 660cc box is pretty fantastic. And ridiculous.
It looks like Japanese tuner Mugen started with the 'California Diner' trim level of the N-Box Slash, then added exciting bits like a sporier, central-mounted exhaust, some sort of puzzling graphics (Route 16? Was Route 16 a big deal?), stripes, flame decals coming out of the headlights (for that illusion that your car uses a pair of captive fires for lighting), and, of course, those awesome finish-line checkerboard wheels.
If the car is to stay registered as a Kei-class car in Japan, that means they likely had to leave the 660cc/64HP engine alone, which is only roughly 1/10th the output of actual American muscle cars, so that's not bad, right?
Really, I think this is fun — I like seeing a car that clearly isn't taking itself too seriously. This will be shown at the upcoming Tokyo Auto Salon, alongside other bonkers N-Box variants, like the DVD-movie-in-the-$1-barrell-named 'Cyber Code 89,' which looks sort of like a robotic vacuum-fish.