Honda Announces End Of Boredom
Honda had been, on these pages and elsewhere, accused of perpetrating vehicular boredom. At the Tokyo Motor Show, Honda even admitted its sins: “Frankly speaking we think that in the past few years the cars have been a bit boring,” creative director of Honda’s styling design development division Yoshinori Asahi told the Sidney Morning Herald.
A remorseful Honda president Takanobu Ito now tells The Nikkei [sub] that the criticism was warranted and that things will change. First, however, Ito denies responsibility for the flagrant boredom, using the trite and true “I just followed orders” defense:
“We divided the world into six regions, and Honda’s regional operations were each responsible for their respective regions. Whenever we planned a product for the global market, our thinking was that we needed to listen to each regional supervisor. So our development staff was just taking orders. When you harmonize all the different opinions, you end up with a safe, boring car.”
Nonetheless, matters will change for the better, Ito swears on a stack of non-existing Shinto-bibles:
“We will work on highly distinctive vehicles that are solid in environmental friendliness and safety. This strategy will be represented by our effort to make vehicles more sporty. Through such moves, we will stimulate not just the market, but our company as well. When I took charge of Honda’s automobile operations in April 2011, I had three corporate officers each supervise luxury, midsize and small vehicles. Putting more authority in their hands, I asked them to create more competitive autos and to speed up coordination with product planning and regional operations. I set up a structure that would allow them to take the lead in realizing the wishes of the development team. The fruits of these moves will begin to appear in the market next fiscal year.”
Stocks of makers of tranquilizers dropped on the news, but recovered later in the trading session.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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>Honestly, I don’t know where people get the perception that a Civic or a Camry is so much better than the American (and German) competition. That fully spec-ed Neon I was cross shopping my '95 Civic against? You don't see any of them on the road anymore. You still see lots of Civics from that era in good condition. The real question is whether or not the Japanese can maintain what they had with the rising Yen.
If the totally uninspired (play it safe)styling of the so called new Accord sedan is an example of Honda's effort to make exciting cars then HOnda is truly lost. Honda and Acura design studios do not have a clue as to how to design a stunningly attractive vehicle, their designs are either bland, boring or just ugly. There is not a single Acura/Honda product that I would buy based upon its styling alone. As a friend of mine recently told me, he bought a new Cr-V even though he did not like the styling at all. Even though I need to replace my 2003 Accord, the styling of the dated, bland styling of the Accord is a "deal breaker" and I will buy either an Optima, Fusion or Mazda 6 all of which have styling that are lights years ahead of the dowdy and tepid effort by Honda.