OH FO SHO

The Autoextremist has an interesting take on Honda's current state: lost in the sea of blandness.

[QUOTE]Honda is even in more dire straits given the monumental task ahead for the company. And it’s even worse than that since it’s a challenge entirely wrought of its own making. Honda hasn’t just squandered its considerable legacy of maverick innovation in this country among its hard-core constituents, the company has unleashed a brace of piss-poor monuments to mediocrity that don’t deserve to wear the Honda badge, and it is killing them.

The current Accord is woefully uninspired, the Crosstour is a flat-out abomination, and the new CR-Z was a major miss, just to name a few. As a matter of fact the CR-Z is the car that worries me the most in considering Honda’s immediate future. If this was the car that was supposed to bring the Honda Faithful back they blew the opportunity to smithereens. Honda used to be the

Traveldude

While I totally agree with the viewpoints of this article, the only way I see Honda changing it's ways is if their sales go down. The downside with this strategy is that sales are often a lagging indicator, based on things like reputation, brand awareness, etc. So if sales drop that means this trend has been in motion for a couple of years.

Honda seems content with maintaining its core brand now, rather than growing it or expanding it. And their core brand has become bland, cheap, reliable transportation.

Triple-H

As Vanishing Point said in another thread, Honda has become Ho-Humda...

The article makes many points I agree with, but it misses out on one that I feel very strongly about, and that is the inequality of what Honda makes and sells in Japan and what Honda makes and sells here. The JDM market still gets performance, but we don't. Things like the Civic Type R they get, and we can only dream of it coming here. Engines they get have more power, the same kind of power so many of us long for, but it's not what we get. For me this is the biggest part because it shows Honda is still making some good stuff, it just happens to not come here. Therefore, Honda either does not fully understand this market, or, they just don't give a chit about us performance type people because we are too small of a percentage.

mxt_77

I wonder if the author's claims about Honda's "misses" or failures are actually based on decreasing sales numbers, or if they're just opinion from a random auto "enthusiast". The fact of the matter is that Honda is a business, and they're going to build what sells. If consumers will buy bland in bulk, why should they bother wasting resources developing small-run, and probably small-profit cars like the S2000? In a recession era, those types of things are frivolous.

In the end, articles like this are meaningless. If the author is actually correct, then consumers will speak with their dollars and buy more "mavericky" alternatives. But I suspect Hondas will continue to sell, even if this author believes that Honda has gone astray. Therefore, this author's opinion is meaningless to Honda.

mxt_77

Or they are stifled by strict government legislation which limits the products that they are willing to bring here.

Triple-H

Which means.... if they actually cared about the enthusiast market they would address the issue, but instead, their choice is to walk away from us. And to me that is about the same sentiment as the original article; Honda (HERE) has lost its mojo.

We should be so lucky to get the UK Civic over the bland crap they intend to give us.



http://www.autoblog.com/2010/10/11/honda-u...th-type-r-cues/

Triple-H

Everybody's opinion is meaningless to Honda.... that includes yours and mine.
The only thing Honda cars about is this

TheDonEffect

So Honda is making affordable, reliable, well built cars that lacks comparable performance to its competitors. Aside from the NSX and S2000, both of which werent really profit leaders, what changed?
The Accord is uninspiring? Uhm... duh?
The CRZ is whatever he said? Uhm... duh? I mean look at the CRX, great little car, but thats what it was, a commuter car with some fun injected, extremely frugal, not all that practical, had a sense of sportiness but not really a sportscar. How is teh CRZ none of that? The only reason why the CRX had so much notoriety was cuz you could swap the engine, strip it down, and essentially make a lightweight track car out of them, but stock? It's just a compact hatchback. You could technically do the same with the CRZ I'm sure.
I mean what has Honda really lost that its competitors still have? Is the civic more sportier than the corolla? That's a resounding yes. Is the accord more fun to drive than the camry? It's like comparing beige to off white, but yes.
I mean why is it that people think Honda is some fabled manufacturer that produced all kinds of accessible exciting cars that were wildly successful? And now that we have cars like the GTIs, MS3, Cobalt SS (yeah Cobalt), WRXs, EVOs, gen coupe, etc etc, suddenly people are realizing honda didnt bring that much guns to the table. So what happened since the 90s to Honda? Nothing. It's jsut that now teh competition stepped it up here, think abotu it, had Nissan brought over teh SR20DET pwoered cars that ranged from the lowly pulsar to the silvia, had mazda brought over their turbo four banger cars, toyota with more alltracs (and not charge a friggin mortgage on them), etc etc, people wouldve made the same arguments then.

Traveldude

I am guessing it is a little of both- although his point is that if Honda is committed to its ethos of innovative, sporty fun there shouldn't be as many new releases that don't appeal to him.

I would have to dig back to find the company's initial projections, but if memory serves me correct, of the completely new models released (discounting the new iterations of Accord, Civic, CR-V, Odyssey brands) cars like the Ridgeline, Element, Insight and possibly even the CR-Z (too early to tell) have come in below sales expectations. In my mind, the only really new model line to be a slam dunk in the states seems to have been the Fit.

As for making money- it is very true, Honda isn't a charity. But raising the "making money" flag essentially takes Honda away from what it does best and puts Honda squarely in the ranks of auto companies focused solely on making a buck. The beauty of Honda was that it made money with innovative, fun and unique offerings. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Bboy AJ

Oh boy, we haven't ever discussed this subject before!