In 1996 I was at RPA when the interactive department was still a side conversation. Honda needed a website, and almost nobody could tell you what that meant yet. There were no established playbooks, no automotive conventions, and very little to copy.
We were designing for 640 × 480 screens and internet connections that arrived through a phone line. Every image had a cost. Every page had to work within a tiny amount of screen real estate. Even basic questions were unresolved: What should a car brand look like on a computer screen? How much information could you reasonably ask someone to download? How do you translate the experience of a showroom into something this limited?
That site became one of the first major automotive experiences on the web, and I continued working with Honda as the medium evolved. Screens grew larger. Connections became faster. Browsers became more capable. Then social media created another entirely new set of questions.
The version preserved by the Wayback Machine looks unmistakably like 1996. That’s what makes it valuable. It captures a moment when the limitations were severe, the possibilities were unclear, and everyone involved was learning by building.