Honda had a higher sales growth percentage-wise for 2003 than Toyota or Nissan.

 

True, Honda has higher sales growth in 2003. But Nissan will take that title in 2004 since the sales of its Titan and Armada/QX56 alone is enough to take the title. Not to mention the next M35/45. Basically, my point is, in order for Honda to keep on growing fast, they would have to get into the truck market and have more SUV. Their car sales has already doing so well, I don't see much room to grow.

The truck market has the most brand loyalty of all market. True it'll be hard to take sales from the Big3 in that market, but with a exceptional product, it's possible to make a dent since it's the most profitable market. Toyota hasn't been able to take market share from the Big 3 because the two attempts (T100/Tundra) are weak. It's smaller than the rest w/ less power and TQ than the rest. How can you expect to take market share from the leader when you can't even match the leader in what counts. The Titan's sale # will show how easy/hard it is because in term of power, towing capacity, size, and interior quality, it's top notch.

 

Sticking with the Civic numbers, they don't mean much to me unless I see what the Corolla and the like are doing.

As more small cars start coming in more variety (like the new Mazda 3 hatch) I think the lack of different body styles will eventually hurt the Civic.

I still perfer the Civic seats, but the rest of the Mazda interior blows the Civic away. The Civic looks more and more like a plain, boring sedan.

 

2003 Nissan Sales 794,481

2003 Honda Sales 1,349,847

2003 Toyota Sales 1,866,347

 

coming from an owner of both cars...the 2002 1/2 protege5 wagon and a 2001 civic...the civic's interior is much higher quality materials...my mazda only has 15k miles on it and it has worn fabric (asking dealer to fix it but they say its normal wear and tear on a car with 15k miles on it!), broken piece of plastic (will get dealer to fix) squeaks, rattles, etc (they won't fix the squeaks and rattles as they say it is common!)...our Civic before we sold it to get a TSX had 25k miles on it and had one quality problem...a dead bug in one reverse light that was removed during a service...

 

Civic has the same or more numbers of body variant than the Mazda3 or Corolla.

 

Are you aware that I spent two hours making a damn final sales report for the entire year 2003 for like every single car?

 

A K20 base engine for the next gen Civic EX would be nice, but I doubt that will happen. For a compact fuel-efficient car, the K20 isn't the way to go. Maybe a smaller derivative like a K18 (?) that would put out moderate power and torque without sacrificing too much fuel economy. I just hope that Honda doesn't drop the ball on the next Si. At that price range, the market for competeive compacts is starting to get crowded.

 

I think the new Civic would do a lot better if it didn't look like hell. WTF would you buy this style for when you could get a slightly older, much better-looking EX, etc. for less $? The only new Honda I can stomach is the SI, and it took a while to get used to as well. R&D needs to wake up.