Has Honda gone a little too far?

Press, 7 February 1985, Page 28

Has Honda gone a little too far?

By

PETER GREENSLADE

Mitsubishi and Honda, two of the better selling makes in New Zealand, are finding things rather different in their domestic market. In an effort to boost sales figures, both companies have done something about it. But whether they have taken the right course of action remains to be seen. Mitsubishi’s first and second places in the gruelling 10,000-kilometre ParisDakar rally recently probably gave the Japanese carmaker a boost that it desperately needs these days.

The Paris-Dakar is an annual rally and it is generally regarded as the world’s toughest motor sporting event for,, among other hazards, it involves crossing the Sahara Desert, a feat the contestants undertake by dead reckoning rather than by following signposts. Cars, trucks and motorcycles are eligible and this year two of Mitsubishi’s four-wheel-drive Pajeros turned the trick for the Japanese firm. The drivers were Patrick Zanirolli and Andrew Cowan. The Paris-Dakar event was testimony again to Mitsubishi engineering and reliability. In 1983 a Pajero won the rally outright and last year an example won the modified four-wheel-drive, the production four-wheel-drive and the marathon categories.

This year there were 30 Pajeros in the rally, some running under the works banner and others privately. Actually the rally proved to be a boost for the Japanese automotive industry, because third behind the Pajeros came a Toyota Landcruiser. In New Zealand, the Mitsubishi name is synonymous with sound engineering, reliability and a good sales record, but in Japan the fortunes of Mitsubishi have slumped, along with those of Honda, another strong seller in New Zealand. In Japan, Mitsubishi, never a really popular carmaker, has only 5 per cent of the market, compared with the 7.5 per cent by Mazda and 8.5 by Honda. To all intents and purposes, the

remainder of the market is carved up by Toyota and Nissan, Toyota having the larger slice.

The new front-drive Sigma range has not attracted much interest in Japan and in the hope of whipping up some enthusiasm for these quite technically advanced cars, Mitsubishi has come up with a pair of Sigma four-door hardtops.

Although these cars, apart from the doors, comprise entirely different panels and are lower than the Sigma saloons, they appear almost identical to casual observers, so the venture could be hardly described as an outstanding sucess. Honda’s new Civic range has not proved as popular as expected in Japan, sales are being about a third less than originally budgeted. Like Mitsubishi, the company appears to have taken panic measures to get itself out of the mire and abandoned the happy mean of economy with performance by producing a special engine which will be fitted into a limited-production version of the Civic.

This engine, a fuel injected 1.6-litre twin camshaft, four-valves-per-cylin-der unit, develops lOlkW (135.5bhp) at 6500 rpm. It is of four cylinders but is very similar in conception to the highly successful six-cylin-der Honda Formula 2 racing engine and is extremely light, in that it has the aluminium cylinder block which is a feature of the regular three-valves-per-cylinder Civic engine. It sounds exciting and could prove to be a worthy competitor for the 1.6-litre turbocharged unit in the Mitsubishi Mirage and the four - valves - per - cylinder twin-cam engine which will power the new Toyota Corolla GT hatchback. But there are two curly questions that will demand very good answers before this limited-production Honda Civic enjoys healthy sales which, it is hoped, will im-

prove the image of the entire Civic range.

Are the Japanese and, presumably, the international car-buyers going to get really excited about what is, to all intends and purposes, a shopping basket that goes very quickly in a world in which legislation decrees that cars should go slower?

The second question is one to which the answer is already known by people who have driven the 1.5-litre Civic now available.

Does the lOlkW Civic on its relatively short wheelbase and with its quite marked nose-biased weight distribution have the capacity to be handled safely on public roads?

Having driven the 1.5 Civic on a road racing circuit and virtually as hard as could be reasonably expected, my answer has to be an unequivocal no. Of course, it may be that Honda engineers will uprate the Civic suspension and brakes in its limited-produc-tion versions.

That would inevitably mean a vastly more expensive Civic and that evokes yet another question. Is this super speedster really worth the money? That is a question that cannot be answered until one samples this little supercar that might put down the 3 Series BMW but probably in a barbaric rather than civilised style. After all, to put its power output in the right perspective, one has only to compare it with the new Renault 25 V 6 (104 kW Audi Coupe GT (85kW) or the latest XF Ford Falcon XF, about to be launched in New Zealand, and which in 4.1litre carburettor form develops a quite lusty 103 kW. For the record, a poor little 3 Series BMW 320 i, with a $40,000 plus price ticket,develops a meagre 93kW! On that basis, it looks as though the Honda engineers are well and truly out of

kilter in injecting a lOlkW engine into the sort of car that the Fendalton, Khandalla and Remuera bluerinse brigades tend to drive. As the older among us know, the Japanese, although now very successful in the technological and economic world, have been known to make mistakes. Could it be that Mitsubishi and Honda have fallen into error this time? The indications are that all is not well in Japan’s domestic car market at present, there being sales falls across the board from about the middle of 1984. What is more, according to motor industry observers, Japan can expect a reduction of sales in many international markets this year. If such proves to be the case, it is logical to expect Mitsubishi and Honda — with, perhaps, Mazda — to have to withstand the greatest shock. They are the Japanese car-makers with the least fat to live on in hard times.