[Door Slams]
- [John Barrett] I grew up in LaPlace Louisiana,
which was a suburb of New Orleans,
but relatively far away out in the country.
And we had a drag strip.
So having a drag strip made it a car culture town.
My family was a Ford family.
I don't think my father had a real affinity for Fords,
other than the fact that our town had one dealership
and it was a Ford dealership.
And if you wanted something else,
you had to go somewhere else.
[Car Beeping]
[Engine Starts]
[Engine Revs Loudly, Calm Music]
There's a saying that it's more fun
to drive a slow car fast,
and there's nothing more fun than trying to
drop the beat fast because you've got this little engine
right behind your head spinning up to 8,500 RPM.
So it's a 1,600 pound car with a three cylinder engine
that will rev to 9,000 RPM and make 63 horsepower.
So even though it sounds like you're just going crazy,
you're really not going that fast,
but you got a lot of smiles.
[Car Engine Roars]
Every kid when I was growing up wanted a Honda motorbike.
I did not have one as a youth,
but when I got older, I kind of revisited that
and started collecting Japanese motorcycles.
It introduced me to the Japanese cars,
and most specifically the JDM,
the Japanese domestic market cars.
Cars that we didn't get here,
because I found them so interesting because the technology
was so advanced than anything we were doing at that time.
[Engine Roars]
They have a class called the K class,
which is the entry-level car.
All the cars have a limit of, I think, 660 CC's.
And they're all in the same wheel base,
relatively same weight.
But within these parameters, they build
the most interesting cars with the most interesting engines.
They make front engine rear wheel drive cars,
mid-engine cars, vans, pickup trucks,
all different configurations,
but all under this same parameter of wheel base.
In America, you can bring in cars
if they're 25 years old or older.
And so these things started showing up
and they caught my interest and I had to have one.
The Honda Beat was designed by Pininfarina
to offer midship amusement.
It has all the options, which is a Honda Momo steering wheel
and upgraded wheels.
The Honda Beat is a very approachable car.
No one ever catches their breath and goes
"Oh, maybe I shouldn't."
They just look at it, smile and say,
"Oh, I gotta know what this is."
The most rewarding aspect of owning older cars is meeting
other people that I otherwise wouldn't have met
if we didn't have that common interest.
And I've made some really close friends just from going to
coffee and cars, having an open house in my garage.
I would say most of the people that I relate to today,
or call friends, came through the car or motorcycle hobby.
And you really do meet the nicest people driving a small,
unusual right-hand drive Honda.
The reason I like to drive these little small cars and these
older cars is because it's red line and brakes.
That's where the fun is.
Winding the motor up and not breaking the speed limit.
But it was made to be driven, and it was made to
red line, and it was made to do these things.
So I'm just driving the way it was designed to be driven.
And truthfully, I couldn't drive this every day, all day,
but for a short blast, or for a day or two, or a weekend,
the romance of the open road is still there
with the Honda Beat.
You just realize that you're not going to cover much ground,
and you're not going to cover it fast,
but they're just a lot of fun.
My name is John Barrett.
This is why I drive.
[Music, Engine Roars]