What’s going on with Honda?
Honda Civic Type R - looking good, but...
I always liked cars made by Honda… Since I was a teenager. I respected the brand, considered myself as a fan… When I started studies, I wanted a Civic… A used one of course. Back then there was only Subaru and Honda for me. Two brands that had the edge I was looking for, being at the same time down to earth. In 1999 I became a proud owner of a 1991 Honda Civic. 1.4 liter, 90 HP. Perfect car choice for a student being on a budget (mpg was really good). Absolutely no equipment inside – made the car superlight, what gave it pretty good performance. That was then…
The brand was almost legendary through my eyes. They could reach 100 HP from 1 liter engine capacity without turbo in the ’80s (1.5 l 150 HP CRX). The other producers (Fiat, VW, Opel) needed 1.6 liter to reach 100 HP.
Then S2000 appeared in 1999. The car after 10 years (with only a small “lifting” done on the way) is still one of the best looking (and handling) cars out there.
Two years later Civic Type R was released. Non turbo 2.0 l 200 HP engine (producing 100 HP per liter!). The car outperformed every available hot hatch back then. All other producers needed to put turbo to meet the Type R performance and agility. And they couldn’t do it anyway.
And it started to look bad
10 years have passed… Prelude and NSX were discontinued few years ago. Accord Type R was dropped in 2002!
S2000 will be cancelled in less then a year – with no successor being announced.
Honda S2000 - one of the best roadsters ever
New Civic Type R got fatter and slower than the previous one. The competition not only met the performance levels the previous one established, they outperformed the type R easily in hot hatch segment. Even one size smaller Renault Clio reached 200 HP. The up side is that the trunk got bigger… Yeah…
And it looks like the quality is dropping also. My father has a 2008 Civic and the interior materials (driving wheel and gear knob) look really bad after one year.
What is going on?
I waited for this series of bad news to end… And then more news came. I read that in Europe, the “new sporty Accord will be released” in few months. I thought cool – maybe Type R is back! Not even close.
New Accord Type S - is this all You have?
This sporty 2009 Accord will have 2.4 liter engine producing 200 HP. A joke? Even Opel will soon have AWD 325 HP Insignia OPC version. Not mentioning the top trio: BMW M3, Audi S4 and Mercedes AMG versions of cars in the segment. And the brand that was always sporty, announces 200 HP engine in this class? A joke indeed…
I know that in the US there are more powerful V6 Accord Coupe versions available, but they are really a fat saloon cars more then a performance cars. And they are not available in Europe.
The conclusion is that Honda is turning into Toyota.And this is absolutely the worst news. Even Toyota, with it’s new leadership, is working on a budget performance car with Subaru, also they want to revive the Supra model.
And Honda? Just cancelled the S2000. I can’t find any Honda product now to be a fan of anymore. And that makes me sad. Give us, motoring fans some news on reviving the CRX, NSX or any other performance engine or badge!
You may also like:
I’ve been reading along for a while now. I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work.