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Takanobu Ito: new Honda CEO from June 2009

February 23, 2009 at 5:16 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Honda, International News

Honda CEO Honda CEO

Honda Senior Managing Director Takanobu Ito will become Honda Motor Co Ltd’s new President & CEO effective late June 2009, taking over from the current President & CEO, Takeo Fukui. Both the outgoing CEO and the new CEO are from engineering backgrounds. Ito has a M. Eng in Engineering from the Kyoto University and joined Honda Motor Co Ltd in 1978 as a chassis design engineer. He was in charge of the all-aluminium monocoque chassis of the mid-engined Honda NSX.

In addition to the President and CEO positions of Honda Motor Co Ltd in June 2009, 55-year old Takanobu Ito will also first assume the President and Director positions of Honda R&D in April 2009. 64-year old Takeo Fukui who has been President and CEO since 2003 will continue in Honda as Advisor and Director.
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New Honda Stream RSZ from Honda Malaysia

February 20, 2009 at 6:51 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Honda, Local News

Honda Stream RSZ

Though it’s not time for a facelift yet, Honda has given its Honda Stream an equipment update. The second generation Stream is now called the Honda Stream RSZ and as you can expect from its name, it comes with the nice RSZ bodykit that you get when you buy a parallel import Stream in Malaysia, so now the sportier look is available with the official Honda Malaysia import as well.

Other than the bodykit complete with front foglamps, the new Stream RSZ also gets larger 17 inch alloy wheels to match the kit, which I feel was quite necessary because if the original Stream’s 15 inch wheels were retained, they would look pretty odd filling the wheelarches of the sporty looking body. The High Intensity Discharge headlamps are smoked and have light sensors to turn on automatically in the dark.

Honda Stream RSZ

The steering wheel is leather-wrapped and now feature paddle-shifts, but no steering wheel audio controls though. The interior is black instead of the regular Stream’s beige. While some of the product photos you’ll see after the jump show a version without a sunroof, the Honda Stream RSZ we get here will retain the regular Stream’s sunroof.

The new Stream RSZ will be sold for RM155,980 OTR with insurance alongside the original Stream, priced at 149,800.00 OTR with insurance. That’s a slight over RM6,000 premium over the regular Stream, but with the extra equipment you get its pretty decent. For now, the regular Stream will still be available until CBU stocks are cleared out but in the future only the Honda Stream RSZ will be available.

The Stream RSZ comes in 4 colours – Premium White Pearl, Crystal Black Pearl, Polished Metal Metallic and New Red Pearl. The RSZ Stream will be available at dealers from the 26th of February onwards. It comes with a 3 year (100,000 km) warranty and free service for the first 6 months (10,000 km).

Look after the jump for more shots of the new Stream RSZ.
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Honda Civic Hybrid gets new price: RM 129,980

February 10, 2009 at 2:05 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Honda, Hybrids and Alternative Fuel, Local News

Honda Civic Hybrid

The facelifted Honda Civic is now in Malaysia, first in Honda Civic Hybrid form. Honda Malaysia Sdn Bhd has finally announced the new pricing for the Honda Civic Hybrid. It now retails for RM 129,980, a small premium of RM1,180 over the Honda Civic 2.0S.

It’s now also available in two colours – Premium White Pearl and Neutron Blue Metallic (new colors shown above), while the pre-facelift version only had one bluish-silverish metallic colour. For those waiting for the facelifted regular Civic, according to Honda Malaysia it will be coming in mid-March 2009.
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Mugen’s aerodynamic Zero-Lift Honda Insight

February 10, 2009 at 4:04 am By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Honda, International News

Mugen Insight

It’s obvious that Honda and Mugen work closely on Honda cars even before they are officially released, looking at how fast Mugen comes out with kits for new Hondas. The Mugen kit for the new Honda Insight is out and it’s called the Mugen Zero-Lift Insight, which like its namesake is supposed to create zero-lift for the car, according to Mugen. Yup, a bodykit that’s fully wind-tunnel tested.

The aerokit is made up of a new grille, front under spoiler, side spoiler, rear under spoiler, and a rear wing. You can fit a triangular-shaped sports silencer on the rear. There are visors for the side windows that are ventilated to ensure it does not interrupt air flow. There are a choice of 2 wheel designs (a Y-spoke XJ design and a 7-spoke NR design) in various colours. A sports suspension is available for improved handling. Mugen also offers the i-TCMS system which is a tyre pressure monitoring system. On the inside you can also specify a “sports mat”, whatever that is.

Look after the jump for a full gallery of the Mugen Zero-Lift Insight as well as a video of the pimped out hybrid in motion.
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2009 Honda Accord Mugen 24sc Concept

February 6, 2009 at 9:27 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Concept Cars, Honda

Mugen Accord 24sc Concept

One thing that the European and Japanese Honda line-up have in common is its Accord, they both use the sleeker, sportier and more compact version of the Accord as opposed to the large and more luxurious-looking Accord that we get, which is called the Honda Inspire in Japan. While Europe makes do with a new Type S oil burning Accord (the Type R could come back with this new generation), Japanese tuner Mugen takes the JDM Honda Accord, slaps on a bodykit and a Type-R-esque rear wing and finally supercharges the 2.4 litre DOHC engine. No power figures of the Honda Accord Mugen 24sc Concept have been released but I’d say something around the 300 horsepower range can be expected. Look after the jump for more shots of the supercharged Accord.
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Euro Honda Accord Type-S: 180 PS turbodiesel

February 6, 2009 at 8:57 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Honda, International News

Honda will be displaying a more powerful version of the oil burning European market Honda Accord at the Geneva Motor Show this March.

The 2.2 litre i-DTEC engine in the Accord Euro turbodiesel has been upgraded with a revised turbo, cylinder head and larger intercooler resulting in a 30 PS peak power upgrade to 180 PS at 4,000rpm and a torque boost of 30Nm up to 380Nm as low as 2,000rpm. This more powerful turbodiesel Accord will be known as the Honda Accord Type S. The manual-only Euro Accord Type S will also get a new set of 18 inch alloy wheels and clear indicator covers to differentiate it from the rest of the Accord range, and most importantly a “Type S” badge.

Both the sedan and estate bodystyles will be available, and two new colours will be available exclusively for the Type S – Premium White Pearl and Basque Red. The car shown above is the regular Euro Accord sedan, as photos of the new Type S have not been released yet.

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2009 Honda City: first drive impressions review

February 5, 2009 at 4:51 am By Paul Tan Filed Under 2009 Honda City, Cars, Honda, Test Drive Reviews

2009 Honda City

The Japanese B-segment market is indeed a hot one and is dominated by the H and T badges, despite honest efforts by other manufacturers such as Suzuki to make an impact with cars such as the SX4 sedan. The City and the Vios remain the champions of the under RM80k non-national sedan market and are the target of many people who long to break out of what they feel is the curse of Proton ownership, so naturally the launch of the new Honda City this year was very eagerly awaited. The new City is blessed with good looks and now that the launch and fanfare are over, it’s time to take a good look at the car and see if it is indeed as good as it looks.

Read my full driving impressions after the jump.
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Say goodbye to the Honda S2000 with the white Honda S2000 Ultimate Edition

January 30, 2009 at 8:44 am By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Honda, International News

Honda S2000 Ultimate Edition

The Honda S2000 first made its debut in 1999 and after nearly 10 years, it’s finally going to be laid to rest. Honda has announced that production of the S2000 for all regions will halt at the end of June this year. There should be approximately 110,000 S2000s on the road around the world, if most of them aren’t totaled yet. Of that figure, 20,000 units were sold in Japan and another near-20,000 in Europe.

Honda is of course having a final go at the S2000 with this new Honda S2000 Ultimate Edition, which will be unveiled at the Geneva motorshow in March and sold until June 2009. The engine is still the 240 PS 2.0 litre 9,000rpm high revving engine powering the car’s two rear wheels. It is painted with the Grand Prix White colour which is supposed to evoke memories of Honda’s 1964 F1 car. This will be matched with a red leather interior.

This would also mean the high-revving FR Honda engine will now be in limited supply, making it harder to do modifications such as this.

Look after the jump for more shots of the S2000.
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What will personal mobility be like in 80 years?

January 19, 2009 at 12:31 am By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Honda, Videos

This second video from the Honda Power of Dreams series of documentaries poses some interesting questions. What would personal transportation be like 80 years from now? Yes, not 8 years but 80 years.

A few folks were asked these questions and there answers were quite expected. You have stuff like flying cars, individual space craft, personal helicopters, and even teleportation and magnetic levitation. Someone’s idea was walking – yup 80 years from now we’d just go back to our origins and walk everywhere, it’s exercise and good for health after all.

The video then looks back on what a bad idea the internal combustion engine was in the long run, and points out that the new car of the future has to make our existing cars look like land lines compared to cell phones. It should make you ask yourself why would you ever use a landline anymore when you’ve now got cellphones. Of course being a Honda video, there are plugs for the FCX Clarity hydrogen fuelcell car inserted :P

Anyway, how about you? How do you think human transportation will be like in the decades to come? Watch the video after the jump.
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Honda Dreams Short Film Series: “Failure: The Secret to Success”

January 18, 2009 at 11:53 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Honda, Videos

Honda has just launched a new campaign focused on the US market to build its “Power of Dreams” theme. It’s essentially a website with a collection of short documentary films. The website just went up and will start off with 3 films, with more to be added later in the coming months. This is the first of the three films called “Failure: The Secret to Success”, which encourages you to not be afraid to try something new.

It features various Honda-affiliates personalities such as Danica Patrick, who drives a Dallara Honda IndyCar race car. She was also scheduled to become a test driver for the Honda F1 team, but it was called off and in the end Honda pulled out of F1 altogether.

After the first half of the video it starts getting really interesting because we get to hear engineers talking about engines blowing into millions of pieces during early trials. Just FYI, here’s a short intro to the Honda IndyCar engine. It’s a 3.5 litre normally aspirated 32 valve V8 putting out an estimated 650 horsepower on 100% fuel-grade ethanol, and revs up to a 10,300rpm rev-limited redline.

One thing though, Honda seems to like video-based campaigns alot. Another video-centric online campaign by Honda is their Drive Every Drop online travel show. Anyway please watch the video after the jump.
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