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Originally Posted by Re_Invention
Hahah! Well played! :happy0180: It is rightfully BS and color me impressed, you seem to know what you're talking about  (definitely more input that I thought of). But to deflect here a bit (or rather, to go back to my original point after the schooling/shock), my opinion on Honda doesn't change and I don't believe there is anything to be nostalgic about. They have been active in motorsport's and they still offer sporty, and let's use your words; affordable, machines compared to the competitors. |
The problem I see is two-fold. First, Honda discountinued the S2000, Prelude, RSX/Integra, and NSX without filling the respective voids left by those cars. And it's not like those cars were SUVs or minivans or passenger cars. They constituted nearly all of the sporty offerings Honda sold over the past 1-2 decades. Now, if you want a sporty Honda, your only option is the Civic SI. That's it, just 1 car. There's a big gaping hole in the enthusiast side of Honda's lineup, especially as compared to the 90's and early 00's when they maintained at least 4-5 enthusiast cars at all times in their lineup (and that's not even counting the Type-R's).
The second problem is that even with its passenger cars, Honda moved away from being the light/sporty option and over the past decade, that's shown. The current gen Accord is huge compared with 1-2 decades ago. The last comparison I saw featuring the Accord, it was the
heaviest car in the comparison, even heavier than the Camry. Consumer Reports noted the Accord bloat in their review of the 2011-2012 Accord:
http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthrea...cord-goes-soft
Even chief engineer of the new NSX, Ted Klaus, acknowledges that Honda moved away from sporty offerings in recent years and is now trying to head back towards that direction:
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Q10: (The Car Connection): In general, does the NSX signal the return of performance cars at Honda. Will there be a trickle down effect at Honda leading to the return of more sporty, enthusiast-oriented models?
A10: You're talking to someone that lives and breathes these types of products and I have a mandate from leaders within Honda and Acura to make a halo vehicle. These are the people who are putting the future plans in place. I can't guarantee it, but this is our mindset now. We have a lot of wonderful Honda and Acura products out there right now, maybe not as pure as the S2000, but they put a smile on my face today. This is an opportunity to leverage S2000, NSX and I think that is exactly the direction our company is going.
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And here's what someone who works/contracts for Honda says about the current mindset at the company:
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The "Passion" that people speak of is slowly being injected. The slow, useless, boring "utilities" are being phased out. Honda knows what it needs to do, and our own President is very very upset that he reads "Honda has lost its way" in every car magazine he puts his hands on. So now......................the market will reap the benefits of a beast that has been awakened.
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Honda seems to be learning from its mistakes and is reversing course by introducing some sporty offerings to the market again. It's bringing back the NSX in a few years and mulling over whether to resurrect the S2000. After watching the Civic SI/Type-R get killed in comparisons, they promise re-introduce a new Civic Type-R that will have class-leading performance. They re-designed the current Civic mid-cycle and publicly apologized that the last-gen Civic was sub-par. The current gen Accord has gotten some of its mojo back. So about the best I can say right now is there's reason to be hopeful that Honda is reversing course.