- This pint-sized Honda hatchback had the best accessory ever: a folding scooter.
- The City Turbo was a small but roomy hatchback that was sold in Japan and featured a scrappy turbocharged engine.
- The Motocompo folds up and fits in the back, so you never have to leave it behind.
In the argument over the greatest optional extra ever fitted to a car, Honda’s 1980s mobility solution knocks any would-be competition on its ear. When ticking the boxes on a then-new Honda City hatchback, buyers had the ability to add on a tiny folding scooter that tucked right into the trunk. It was called the Motocompo, and a 1983 Honda City Turbo with this fantastic accessory has turned up on Bring a Trailer (which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos).
A City Turbo is great fun all by itself, a scrappy little Japan-market urban runabout from Honda’s golden age. If you remember the Civic Wagovan, you can probably see a little of that Star Trek shuttle design here, making the most of a small footprint with a boxy outline. At the time of its launch in 1981, it was the smallest Japanese car outside of the Lilliputian kei class of cars, yet you could still fit four people in it.
Being a Turbo model, this example gets a turbocharged 1.2-liter four-cylinder engine that made just shy of 100 horsepower when new. Given that a Honda City only weighs around 1600 pounds, that’s plenty of scoot for a subcompact car. Think a high-roofed Mk 1 Volkswagen GTI: easy to park, very practical, thrifty on fuel, capital-F Fun.
Adding frosting to this little Honda cupcake is the presence of the 49cc Motocompo, which can be folded up to fit in the rear. Like all small-displacement scooters, the Motocompo manages to provide an outsize hilarity despite not being all that quick. The fact that you can fold it up like a Transformers cassette tape just makes it that much cooler.
This pairing is such an iconic design combo that if you pick up the Hot Wheels model of the Honda City, you can see a couple of Motocompos molded in plastic in the back hatch. It wasn’t actually all that successful in the period, but Honda fans have long shown this little scooter love, to the point that Honda brought out a modern battery-powered version in 2023: the Motocompacto.
Car and bike are located in Washington State, and both appear to be clean examples with a little wear. The City Turbo has the equivalent of 45,000 miles on the odometer and has had its paint refreshed at some point. Everything looks nice and tidy, especially that simple, all-business 1980s Honda interior.
It’s nearly impossible to think of a more fun pairing. Honda should think of letting its hair down a little and doing this again: a Civic Type R hatchback paired with a built-in, more powerful Motocompacto? The best optional extras ever.
The no-reserve auction ends on Wednesday, February 19.
Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden era of Japanese sport-compact performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels.
Source: Motor - aranddriver.com
