So Honda is back in business. Or at least the factory line is moving, a bit. Which leads me to thinking about what they’re actually making over there, and whether anyone outside of Swindon really gives a toss.
Selling anything is all about momentum. When you’re up you’re up. When you’ve got a good product out there people care what’s coming next.
But when you’ve been publicly mothballed and the last thing anyone got excited about (and for Honda here I’m thinking Civic Type R, new Jazz at a generous push) was years ago, where’s the energy, where’s the interest?
I drove the Lotus Evora the other day and asked a company spokesman, in my bare-arsed sales naivety, whether or not they were worried about launching such a radical new product into a market that was essentially on its arse.
He pointed out that the reverse is really the case, that companies with nothing new to get those passers-by in off the street are the ones that have something to worry about.
So good luck Honda. I really hope they can pick up where they left off. Or a bit better than that come to think of it.
And where’s that new NSX when you really need it?
Good point. Haven’t read about an interesting honda in the pipeline for ages.
Who wants the lame Insight? The Jazz is boring, the Civic’s not ageing brilliantly, and what have they done to the Accord? And despite it’s plus points, I can’t believe they still sell the original S2000.
They don’t really deserve to tempt people into the dealerships, do they?
You are forgetting the soon to be released (2009/2010?) Honda CRZ which should be the spiritual successor to the CRX and original Honda Insight. The CRZ will be a sports hybrid and likely to have a 1.8 super-duper VTEC mated to the standard hybrid bits for economy. Yum. Best of both worlds hopefully.
I am forgetting about that, you are correct. However it does sound a bit too good to be true.
I’ll believe it when I see it…. **Keeps fingers crossed**
P.S. Surely a more important question is why Honda and the other motor manufacturers have been so slow to build more efficient cars?
The original Honda Insight, one of the world’s first production hybrids, got 83MPG combined and only emitted 80g CO2 when released in 1999 (ten years ago!) whilst using mid-nineties technology, albeit with an aluminium frame. Surely we should have a petrol driven four or five seater car getting 75MPG by now?!?
If a Japanese car company were to go out of business, it should be Toyota.
ahh the nsx.. I know of no one who has seen more than 3 in their lifetime.. the civic on the other hand becomes rather interesting to some especially after Mr.H knocked a couple of grand of the price… with a little help from friends…
on the thought of a jap manufacturer’s fall .. surely subaru !
That’s a good point. Toyota is really boring. I con’t think of one Toyota of the top of my head that gets me excited. Also, the Prius (supposedly the most economical car they’ve ever made) is worse for the planet in the long run than a Discovery. Subaru aren’t putting much stuff to get the people excited at the mo. The rear lights on the latest Impreza look like… Well, the rear lights some chav would have put on it anyway, which just makes everyone think you’re a bit sad. Go Mitsubishi though!
We need someone like Carlos Ghosn to lead both Toyota and Honda.
Without him, Nissan and their fans would never see the light of a new Z since the last 300ZX. Same to the GT-R when everyone thought the R34 would be last one Nissan will built.
Love them or not, both Toyota and Honda will need to rejuvenate themselves and bring back both the Supra and NSX models. It will also help to bring more competition to their Super GT race.
I hope they’re focusing their attention towards hydrogen powered cars like the Clarity, or mass producing the Clarity for that matter.
Love them or not, both Toyota and Honda will need to rejuvenate themselves and bring back both the Supra and NSX models. It will also help to bring more competition to their Super GT race.get back in there honda come on!!!!!
rejuvenate ?? How much more rejuvenation did you have in mind ? The clarity is as new as it gets right now and the civic is querky and funky enough to be like nothing else on the market, like it or not is another issue… Toyota’s LC V8 and the iq are cars I find quite exciting as well and we might not like the prius but it’s success commands some kind of respect none the less. Mazda’s rx8 is quite an achievement and nissan’s z range is still populart enough not to be matched… These are all cars that we see on the road in masses every day so I don’t quite get how a supra or nsx here and there will “bring them back in the game”.. especially when the market seems to be shifting towards affordable green technology…
…if you want a supercar to drewl over there are plenty to go about they’re just not from japan and in my humble opinion never were and perhaps never will be…
“Surely we should have a petrol driven four or five seater car getting 75MPG by now?!?”
We do – last weekend I was on the M4 in an R56 Cooper with less fuel than Massa and no cash for a splash & dash. Dialled 55 into the cruise and set for home with the trip reporting between 60 & 90 mpg depending on the gradient. Average must have been close to 75mpg. OK, it was a terribly boring journey, but does show what modern cars can achieve if we forego the desire for sub 10s 0-60 and three figure top speeds.
There are few Japanese car companies who have revealed interesting cars. Nissan are one of them, they revealed the GT-R a while back and everyone got excited, then they announced the lap times it achieved at the ‘ring which annoyed Porsche. Now they’re making the new 370Z; a sharp looking coupe with lots of power and a well designed interior like a mini GT-R, that’ll soon stun the motoring world with it’s lap times, faster than a Cayman? Probably.
Mitsubishi have today released pictures and specs of their new Evo X FQ-400, looks fantastic, the figures are unbelievable and it’s nothing like the old FQ-400 which was very unpractical.
So Honda you need a new car with stunning, sharp looks, awsome performance, and a badge to go with it, oops! This is part of the problem: The Honda badge isn’t a symbol of power or beauty, nor is it a luxury icon, it’s known mostly by OAP’s, which is uncool. So Honda, up your game, design some stunning concepts and grab the motoring worlds attention.
Maybe Honda should make a hot-hatch version of their new Jazz, that’ll turn some heads. But they should make sure they don’t make the same mistake they did with the new Civic Type-R and they’ll be ok.
Don’t forget the Toyota’s spiritual successor to the 86 Corolla, due to be out in the next two years. RWD, lightweight, cheap-ish.. surely that’s kick-ass..
Honestly the UK has it lucky with honda, you have different styling exterior and interior, as well as other models. North America gets the shaft with style and fun, our honda cars are boxs, very little style, in and out, as well we don’t get many hot models, the most we get is a Civic compact coupe sedan, oh and the old S2000. Your civics even look different and way better I might add. I agree that they and others need to spice up their lines a bit, because I have never for a moment thought or considered about buying, nay, even driving a honda.
Dunno about here but Honda has displaced Toyota as the No.1 selling make in Japan for April. They had the top two spots last month with the Insight being the first hybrid to top the Japanese monthly sales chart ever and the Fit (Jazz) had been the No.1 seller for the previous 4 months straight, displaced by the Insight last month. The Fit was also the No.1 selling car of 2008.
But unlike others, Honda are engine makers first-most and make a lot of cash from scooters, lawn mowers, generators, pumps, etc.
The Insight and Prius may not be to the liking of dinosaur petrol-heads who demand track performance in Tescos car park but come the revolution (the £2 litre of petrol / diesel) hybrid electric / hydrogen fuel cell engines will be the only affordable game in town, unless you can afford £400 a month in petrol to run your average 2 litre petrol car.
The oil crisis of the 70’s will look like a picnic compared to what’s coming in the next few years.
Honda’s still in F1, effectively, too- under a different name(who developed the car?),- shall we see how well Jenson Button’s team do next season with a vehicle that is their own, under the new regs.?
To scuffy, both Honda and Toyota are too busy producing high volumes mass production cars for the general public much like GM, Chrysler and Ford. They have the similarly hot selling Corollas to the Civics for Honda, but they are missing models which makes them popular back in the 80s and early 90s.
If Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Mazda had not produced their legendary supercars of Supra, NSX, GT-R and RX7 respectively, their global branding position would not have been where they are right now.
Sure, the cars from Japan may never be as inspiring and desireable from anything in Europe and never will be, but, they are good at producing cars that can match all of the European produce in performance and better them in reliability (we are talking about cars that will run fine every time), coupled with affordable pricing, and this is what they are good at.
You also have to understand that, while there is a need for the sports car market segment for these 2 companies, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they need to trade off the green car market segment. They just need to bring back cars that we know they can produce just like in the late 80s or early 90s, give the Americans and Germans a little stir in their own pots.
I bet we all love to see the bitching between Corvette – GT-R and 911 – GT-R, but obviously, it would be better if we could bring in the Supra and NSX too in the mix.
@19, yup, but you’d have to agree it was the civic, the celica/corolla, the 323/626,and the cherry/sunny that put these manufacturers on the european market in the first place and the nsx and supras were simply there to make the point “we can…” and never played a major role in the quest to tempt germans over from their kadettes,golfs escorts and mondeos… in fact and correct me if i’m wrong most of us would still prefer a german or italian performance car to any japanese counterparts were it not for the sometimes outrageous pricetags…
As far as branding goes the supra and nsx therefore never had a segnificant part regardless pedigree, performance or pricing… not in europe anyway..
the gt-r may be steal time off a 911 on the ring self respecting senior execs with armani suits, cartier specs and a sporty flair however will still opt for a porsche instead of a nissan… c’est la vie.. and honestly I think rightly so..
and with all due respect, the rx7 was not a supercar, far from it and neither is the gt-r although I must admit it is a little closer to the start line…
these cars struggle amongst porsches, amg-s and m-s, they don’t belong and are lost in the world of lambos, astons and ferraris. Let’s be fair !
I think Honda should take the HSC concept from a few years back, sharpen up the design a bit, in a similar way to Lexus when they redid the LF-A in 2007, then stick two VTECs together to make a very reliable V8 that revs to about 9000rpm. That would make a pretty cool New NSX. And get Jenson Button to develop it (Ayrton Senna used to race for Honda and tested the old NSX).
Unfortunately in order to do this Honda would need to go back on their plan to stop building RWD cars, which may be unlikely…
If Honda does like a few ‘VERY’ special cars like a NSX that goes 200MPH and a Civic Type R racer then it would save itself from falling apart. (I also think Brawn GP are doing fine and Honda doesn’t need to go back into F1)
Scudy, ok the Japanese make sports cars rather than supercars – the NSX was close to a supercar, but ultimately underpowered – but now they want to be taken seriously. That’s why Nissan made the R35 GT-R a standalone model with a well-built interior and serious SUPERCAR performance, rather than just a racy turbocharged bespoilered Banzai version of the Skyline Coupe, and why Lexus have kept taking the LF-A to the Nürburgring (and are now making it). Sure that’s only two, plus that mental new Evo X FQ-400, but hopefully it’s the beginning of a second coming for Japanese performance cars.
As for image, Jap sports cars are for people who can think for themselves and don’t care about the badge value.
@26.. agreed, in the ideal world of the petrol head, badge value carries no weight. In the real world, dominated by branding and depresiation though you’d have to stand corrected…
@tom tg, I’m not sure where you get your info from but as far as I am aware Honda are not falling apart.. the effects of a global reccesion are however influencial ion their current production and market strategies.. and I’m still convinced it would take a little more than 2 welded engines, a catchy carbonfibre chasis and an NSX pedigreed badge to solve what ever difficulties they might be facing…
it would help some of you if you imagined 20 years on top of your current ages and take a minute or two to think b4 you start your comments. It would def. improve the quality of conversation up here and is good practice to those of you having motor journalistic ambitions..
ta
To Scudy,
I was on about the car industry in general, yes it’s not EXACTLY falling apart but I was simply exaggerating. I know perfectly well that most, if not all major car manufactures will survive this recession. But what I’m saying is that if the economy gets any worse and Honda will continue to lose profits then it will be in a worse state than it is now. So what they should do is just get some new models into the range (like I said before, NSX, New type R) and those two models I mentioned were just examples of what they should do.
so the “super”-car and the boy racer and what ever else we might wish for xmas would give Honda the boost ? don’t worry though I get what you’re saying it just doesn’t make sense.. hahaha sorry braf, no hard feelings I’m just a bit annoyed at some of the lamer comments up here in general including mattt master’s…
i have just watched budget supercars and read all other posts above and i really disagree with european supercar fanatics. i mean, honda cars started from the honda civic. and to date, they are still building civics which keeps the car manufacturer alive. and i’m not surprised why the general public continues to buy civics. i own a 1993 honda civic. my brother owns a 1996 civic, and my dad owns a 2008 civic. now all these models perform well, have a great mileage and are realiable(i mean it, my car is 16 years old and it maintains a 29 mpg, having a 1.6 litre powerplant, does 0-60 in 8 seconds and has a top speed of 130 mph). the performance is not far off from the newer models too. and that is testament that it is a good car. i know the performance is quite average, but can other 16 year old abused cars do the same? i street race a drag race regularly since the late ninties and i have never had a major problem with my car(other than airconditioning problems and that was only once.) my whole point is, car manufacturers must be judged as a whole. i mean by reliability of their cars, build quality, pricing, and resale value. its just that most people who post here are too obsessed with horsepower and lap times. they are only a small part in judging what a car manufacturer can offer.
@30 spot on bro, supercars , regardless how utterly useless most of them are, seem to have the persuasive power of the second coming up here.. partly because most of the comments are posted by 12 year olds and partly because jezza says so and un- or underdeveloped personalities incapable of having a thought of their own, in imitating his style have nothing better to say..
@32, one more thing, i just noticed that a lot of people post stuff about super cars like they’ve owned all of them, yet as a matter of fact, they cant even drive!
oh i forgot, this nonsense of releasing new models? now tell me, how many nsx’s and civic type r’s are sold eversince they were first produced? correct me if i’m wrong, but i believe honda sold more standard honda civics in 2007 alone compared to the sales history of these so called “savers” of honda. u judge…
well, here in england, for almost a pocket full of change, one can book a track day and drive pretty much any supercar.. so the hands on experience, though in most cases generated by a playstation:D, isn’t as far out as you might think… and I am compelled to admit that although, and forgive my honesty, I loathe hondas a type r is more appealing than one that isn’t, why they think an nsx will change honda’s world though is truly beyond all the logic I am humble enough to conjour up but hey.. they all seem to agree..:D at the same time most pre season f1 correspondance on the f1 blog expressed concern over how ugly the new cars look…. I am forced to rest my case.. It’s like fishing.. waite for it, there are, sporadic as they are, some good chains..
honda’s are the thing here in the philippines. ive driven type r’s, engines swaps, and to be honest, handling never seemed to be the issue. and u know what u gotta love about a honda? the pure intensity of the engine scream at high revs. bolt on a race exhaust and tune it properly, it will make supercar v8s sound like kittens. i know u guys are not fans of custumization, but the whole point of it is creating a car with ur personality. my car is lightly tuned and the suspension stiffened. handles properly and in my opinion, even better than a type r, although not quite as powerful though. anyway, the bottomline here is, honda makes a great flatform for self expression, and the honda civic with its widely available parts watever the model, is all about standing out in a crowd of equally expressive people.
is micheal schmacher really the stig and be brutetully honest
jesus year the best car show ever up the lambrginis
You guys out there want to get in the real wo rld and remember that the people of Swindon do care about the Honda factory as it employs around 3500 people and is a big contributor to the local economy. As for the comments about the lack of a supercar os S2000 in these economic times how many would they be able to sell to stay in business . What about the New Civic that will probably hit our roads late 2010
Have you seen the pictures of that which looks like Honda are answering there critics so give the guys a break at the Honda factory.
PS I own an N S X and the original insight both of which have been totally reliable and economical to run
I miss my CRX