New Civic marks Honda’s return to sporty roots

Having dealt with major difficulties and adopting a more conservative approach to car making as a result, Honda is finally going back to its heritage of making sporty cars. Speaking to CarAdvice, Honda America’s senior vice president and general manager, Jeff Conrad, revealed that despite recent issues, the car maker is going back to its roots.

“When we came through the recession, we came through flooding in Thailand, the tsunami, we had a lot of challenges,” Conrad said. “When that happens, you have to retrench and you tend to get a little conservative, frankly. Well, now it’s a different market and we looked and we said we don’t like that retrenchment mode, we like fun, we like excitement, we like performance,” he exclaimed.

Unhappy with the brand’s recent conservative attitude, the VP explained that with the 10th-generation Honda Civic, going back to the model’s performance nature was key. He described it as a “concerted effort” by its engineers to reclaim the brand’s sporty heritage.

Conrad also highlighted Honda’s other attempts to get back into motorsports in general. “We have more involvement in racing than any other company out there, and each of those designs can reach out to a particular group of people that are interested in performance,” he said.

“We know that we love racing and we know that our cars perform, and we put them in a race environment so people can see what the cars can do. It pays dividends with our brand,” the Honda VP added.

Needless to say, Honda has been pushing forward with the cause, introducing several key performance models in recent times. With the new NSX and the Civic Type R already at its front lines, the Japanese car maker is said to be working on several other sports models for the future.