For a brand that’s all about unlimited passion and undeviating performance, there’s a lot of “almost” around the Mugen (which does actually mean “unlimited”) brand.
Mugen is almost a part of Honda. It was founded in 1973 by Hirotoshi Honda, son of company founder Soichiro. So it’s all in the family, but despite the close ties Mugen has never actually been owned by Honda Motor Company.
Mugen started as an engine tuner and parts supplier, later moving into full-blown motorsport. But you could almost say its first road car project was the Honda City Turbo, launched in 1982. Almost, because although the engine was a passion project of Hirotoshi, it’s not generally regarded as an official Mugen product. Rather, Hirotoshi developed the boosted 1.2-litre motor and Honda liked it so much, the go-faster City became a production vehicle – the brand’s first turbocharged road car, no less.
If that wasn’t enough to give the high-powered “Bulldog” City cult status, it was also available with the Motocompo, a foldable urban motorcycle that was a perfect fit for the boot. Last-mile mobility long before we’d even heard of such a thing.
READ MORE
The first Honda model to have the official Mugen stamp on it was a body-kitted CR-X in 1984, by the way. So the dressed-up Civic Mugen we reviewed recently is actually right on brand.
Finally, Mugen has almost been going for half a century. But in fact the company was restructured following tax evasion charges in 2003 (Hirotoshi himself was cleared) to become M-TEC. Although it still uses the Mugen name of course.