I wonder what is going to happen.

It could be a case in point of being a 'good' time to roll out the HSC 2005/2006, as the new 911 would have been about for a year or so. It would have to be powerful enough to whip the porkers butt, for a good few years if they are on 6 year cycles.

As it stands the S2 is losing too much ground now to the new Boxster, which is goning to be a coupe and roadster as well as being alot more powerful. The new SLK is a much better car and Honda need to pull out all the stops and devleop and market the HSC as a boxster/911 rival, hence make it cheaper.

 

I keep hearing how Honda are stopping pretty much everything that represents a performance model, not sure whats going on, but it seems really pants for a company thats so good at building fun cars.

The CTR is rumoured to have a short life left, S2000 is going (apparently), HSC is apparently not going to be produced at all, no Type-R Accord, Integra Type-R has never made it to the UK, I just dont get where they are trying to go with all this, just make cars for old people perhaps?

You look at so many other companies, they seem to be really pushing their performance cars, but Honda just seem to be dropping them.

Hope they sort themselves out, have always enjoyed every Honda ive owned, so hopefully there will be some coming out that make me want to keep buying them.

 

Oo-er, this has moved on somewhat!

First off, I appear to have started malapropising "Tochigi."

Apologies to Honda, I hope my version does not mean something terribly rude in Japanese.

Anyway, I was referring to "handbuilt" in the sense of a low tooling investment, relatively labour-intensive plant, which Tochigi is (or was!). I would not deign to slur Honda with the term "handbuilt" in the way that a Morgan or TVR is!

I am interested that AP2 production is/has gone to Suzaka. Is that due to higher demand for the car, or have they merely found a spare corner in which to "handbuild" it?

Either way, where actually does that leave Tochigi, future-wise?

Gazzer, I think you have summed up my feelings of the S2000, future wise. I would disagree that the SLK is a better car, it's just closer to where the heart of the market is. The S2000 is becoming a more extreme, Caterham 7/Elise like alternative. Naturally, the market is smaller.

I cannot believe the rumours of Honda dropping all of their "sporting" products. It makes no sense, when one considers the way the Legend has moved from a wannabe (Watanabe?) Seven-series, into a direct Five-series challenger.

These Halo products (including the Euro-Accord S and the Integra) are of too much importance across the pond for that.

 

Echoing SideShowB0b is the CAR magaizine article this month:

https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=239965

 

It also seems a bit of waste to be spending a small fortune developing F1 engines etc if there's no sporty range to benefit from Honda's recent successes with the BAR team?

 

I might have to buy Car after all - the supplement on crashed exotics turned me right off!

Honda tends to have a good feel for the market, which is why they're so successful.

We decried the move to the current, semi-mpv, McPherson strutted apology for a Civic. Some of us even rushed out to buy the last of the sporty EK4 "true" Civics.

There was a rumour that Honda had learned the error of their ways from that, so the next generation was to gain double wishbones and the CRX variant once more.

Fun these rumours, aren't they?