"Show your race face" - "Show your race face" is prominently featured on this year's booth from Honda in genf. For the Japanese, the slogan marks an important step in the repositioning on the European market. Because two years earlier there was a greener message in the same place: "Blue skies for our children". But the eco-strategy did not really work out - the image of the once sporty brand sank into a gray-green mediocrity.
Now, new sportiness should improve the perception of the brand again. This should not only succeed with the return to Formula 1 - for which the slogan advertises with the "racing face" - but also with new car models. Especially with the Civic Type R, which was relaunched after a long break and celebrated its premiere in Geneva.
The compact athlete should start with a bang. From the beginning, the development goal was to build the fastest front-wheel drive car in his segment, development manager Hisayuki Yagi recalls. The 270 hp Type R reaches speeds of 310 km / h, values that in this class are otherwise only achieved by all-wheel drive models. At the Nürburgring, the Honda immediately underpinned its declaration of war with a new lap record for front-wheel drive cars. However, the development goal could only be achieved with new, complex technology, explains Yagi. The current generation is the first Type R to feature a turbo engine, and there is also an adaptive chassis to compensate for the traction disadvantages of the front-wheel drive and extremely sophisticated aerodynamics. A classic Volks-Sportler like its 28.000 euro predecessor (148 kW / 201 hp) is no longer the around 34.000 euro new edition.
The technical and price upward trend applies even more to the second newly launched Japanese image lighthouse: the NSX. It will change from the Nippon Porsche to the Japan McLaren, and will move from the upscale sports car segment to the super sports class. Three electric motors and a V6 turbo together deliver more than 550 hp, around twice as much as the predecessor's naturally aspirated engine. The price is also likely to have increased by 150.000 percent to around 100 euros. Why didn't you just build a simple, cheaper, fast car? NSX development manager Ted Klaus explains this with the long wait for the successor to the original model discontinued in 2005. The basis of the new model is also simple: a light and torsion-resistant chassis. In addition, there is now the all-wheel technology with active torque distribution between the wheels, which has been refined over the past decade. And thanks to the electric motors, it works so well that the NSX offers unique driving behavior.
The two athletes are not supposed to be pure image machines. Their technology will probably also move into the volume range in the future. How and where exactly, but neither want to say Klaus nor Yagi. However, it is clear that the Japanese model range in Europe should appear significantly more sporty in the future. The long-propagated hybrid drive, however, is initially on the siding. As the only corresponding model in this country, the new generation of the jazz compact car - which also celebrated its premiere in Geneva - will in future receive fuel-saving technology.
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