The Honda N-Box is the kei car introduced in 2011 that became a major best-seller in Japan.
Honda unveiled the first-generation N-Box in October 2011 and launched it in Japan on November 30 of that year. It is a five-door kei car with a tall, box-shaped body, front-mounted engine and either front- or four-wheel drive. The design uses Japan’s kei-car size and engine regulations to provide a remarkably spacious cabin in a small footprint.
The N-Box belongs to Honda’s renewed N lineup, alongside models such as the N-One, N-WGN and N-Van. The “N” recalls Honda’s N360 from the late 1960s and can also evoke words such as “New,” “Next,” “Nippon” and “Norimono.”
The N-Box is sometimes confused with the earlier Honda Life, which was one of its predecessors. Its sales performance was exceptional: by 2019, it had been Japan’s best-selling car for 28 consecutive months, with about 1.7 million sold since launch.