FINDING HONDA

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Scores of classic Japanese compacts greet visitors as they enter the hospital-white, massive box-shaped warehouse, but a recreation of American Honda's first-ever Pico Boulevard headquarters across the room beckons VTEC lovers like the Mecca that it once was. Although the 80,000-mile, 1991 NSX may seem like the obvious choice for Hondaphiles to flock to first, the series of seldom-seen concepts stored along the eastern wall serve as a reminder of Honda's innovative nature. Why Honda executives didn't outfit its private facility with a more virgin specimen of its first and only supercar baffles some, but as it turns out, almost every vehicle on display shares a similar heritage and has been plucked from society (or the race track) one by one by museum affiliates

A recreation of Honda's first North American headquarters located on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles sits at the museum's far end.

Another view of Honda's original corporate headquarters, which opened in 1959 on the premises of a former photo supply shop.

Meet the Honda P-NUT, a design study concept developed for the 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show. An acronym for Personal Neo Urban Transport, the puny three-seater includes a center-mounted driver's seat, a whole lot of glass, and is something you're not likely to see in production for at least 10 years. If ever. Honda also says that its engine bay, which is out back, is a modular one, meaning the possibilities of what might find their way in there are multiple: internal-combustion, gasoline-electric, or fully electric. Pick one.

Honda's 1997 GRX concept, another design study vehicle, blends the company's motorcycle heritage with automotive design. Quite literally. Created by Honda R&D Americas, the GRX gets around by means of the Gold Wing's 1.5L, six-cylinder, horizontally opposed motorcycle engine.  The GRX served as styling inspiration for Honda's forthcoming Insight.

Honda unveiled its FC Sport concept at the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show. The fiberglass mock-up car was developed as a sporty extension of the company's FCX hydrogen fuel-cell sedan. Featuring a center-mounted driver's seat, outside the FC Sport is fitted with massive cross-drilled rotors and huge Honda-stamped calipers. Honda says that if the car's produced, it'll be sold with some sort of high-output fuel cell powertrain. None of that makes very much sense—you know, fuel cells and sports cars coexisting in harmony—but given the CR-Z, such a combination isn't entirely unlikely.

Remember the Acura CL? Of course you don't. This CL concept, developed before the 1997 coupe's release, is exactly what Acura should've built. Twenty years later and with the TSX's modernized V6 underneath its hood, a CL of these proportions would fit nicely into the Acura lineup.

Part sports car, part pick-up truck, Honda's convertible Sprocket concept debuted at the 1999 Tokyo Motor Show. This isn't it, though. Before all of that, Honda R&D Americas designed and fabricated this mock-up version of what the show car was supposed to look like.

Before there was the Prius, there was the all-aluminum Insight. Even today the first-generation Insight boasts one of the most impressive coefficients of drag of any production car. Not that that would make you want one, but still impressive.

You don't know about Honda's EV Plus mostly because only 340 were ever made. Produced from 1997 to 1999, the first battery-electric vehicle made by a major automaker was discontinued due to the Insight's impending 1999 release. The EV Plus wasn't all for naught, though. It served as a test bed for technologies that all Honda hybrids would later use, like its pancake-like motor and Nickel-metal hydride battery.

The EV Plus was later recommissioned and put to use as a development chassis for what would become the FCX fuel-cell vehicle.

Although not a classic, Honda's zero-emissions FCX Clarity probably demonstrates the direction the company's headed better than anything. The FCX began life in 1999 as a recommissioned EV Plus but came into its own in 2008. The FCX Clarity isn't for sale, and can only be leased through designated Honda dealerships for about 600 Earth-loving dollars per month.