honda seems like they're abandoning their sporty models in favor of family cars, and they've been doing it for a while. the mid 90s was honda's heyday, IMO. the 2nd gen legend was a beautiful car, especially with the 230 hp GS trim. the 5th gen accord was the best looking accord ever (IMO) with the exception of the current JDM accord (TSX). the prelude was still around, and the NSX was relatively new.....

the problem now is that honda is just not responding to the market fast enough. the perfect example is honda's delayed entry into the SUV market. it took them SO long to release their own SUV while the rest of the world jumped into it at light speed. now, a growing number of car companies are pushing performance oriented models. not just sports cars, but regular sedans or compact econo-boxes with a huge amount of power, turbochargers, etc... companies are making their engines bigger and even the non luxury brands are starting to ditch FWD. and what does honda do? they stick to their guns, even though the market demands otherwise. they may one day wake up and respond to these market demands, but they're going to be sitting on their asses for a long while before they do (just like with SUVs). this will be honda's doom, if it ever comes to that.

concentrating more on family cars isn't a bad philosophy, cuz it makes them tons of money. every month both honda and acura continue break their sales records.. the enthusiast market is still relatively small and insignificant, so they see no reason to respond to it. but as a result of this market philosophy, their cars have become really dull and boring. i read an article talking about how VW basically took over the role honda had held from the early 80s until the mid 90s. they made a lot of good points, but the major theme about honda was that they're just uninteresting now. they make great cars - we all know that. when the 7th gen accord was about to come out, honda was talking about chasing VW instead of toyota. for a while i thought they'd finally gotten their heads on straight. well, i was wrong

honda has also lost a huge amount of market share in asia, including japan. when i visited japan last year, and taiwan this year, i noticed that there were hardly any hondas on the road. what a sad sight to see.. the roads covered with toyotas and nissans, and a honda every once in a loooong while.