Like many other Americans, I generally consider automobiles made by Japanese carmakers like Honda or Toyota to be better made than their U.S. equivalents. I know I’m sending our domestic industry crashing down in ruins, but I’m hardly alone in that sentiment. The Accord and Camry regularly top all-American efforts like the Ford Taurus in the annual sales sweepstakes.
In 2002, Toyota surpassed Chevrolet in car sales and came within shouting distance (just 30,000 cars short) of eclipsing the whole Ford Division. In 1996, General Motors had a 62-percent automobile market share; in 2002, it had less than 50 percent.
The bestseller in 2002? The Camry, with sales of 434,145, vanquishing its nearest rival — the Honda Accord. In third place was the first American entry, the Ford Explorer, with sales of 433,847. American vehicles were winners only in the full-size pickup category.
Both Toyota and Honda are enviable companies that (aside from being late to develop minivans and failing to immediately understand the SUV mania) have almost never put a foot wrong in the U.S. market. And both are environmentally conscious, producing the only gas-electric hybrid vehicles available here. (That will change late next summer, when Ford finally rolls out the long-delayed hybrid Escape SUV.)
The best Japanese companies (and let’s include Subaru, Mazda and Nissan in the top rank) never build down to the market. Even the entry-level vehicles (the $11,000 Toyota Echo comes to mind) are quality products that will easily see 150,000 miles without major repairs.
I’m particularly in awe of anything built by Honda. For this, credit the late Soichiro Honda, a former racer who founded the Honda Technical Research Institute in 1945, and the company itself two years later. It’s significant that research came first, because Honda has always been in the technical vanguard (especially when it comes to engine design).
According to one company history I read, the senior Honda "was known to visit the shop floor with spanner [wrench] in hand for a noisy tirade on poor performance or shoddy workmanship. The tirade would often end with a well-aimed throw!" He personally tested cars until he was 65, and barred his own family from senior positions. (Tell that one to Ford!) When he retired, it was to devote himself to environmental causes with the Honda Foundation.
Two vehicles I’ve recently tested exemplify Honda’s approach. The near-luxury Acura TL, redone for 2004, is simply one of the best sedans I’ve ever driven, in any price class. The standard 3.2-liter VTEC V-6 jumps 10 horsepower from the old Type S, and offers variable valve timing. It’s an amazingly smooth and quiet powerplant. Add four-wheel vehicle stability control with traction control, and it’s hard to upset this chassis.
Also new this year is a six-channel surround-sound audio system that can play high-end DVD-A discs. The downside is it doesn’t sound especially spectacular playing regular CDs, and it had trouble reading some of my CD-Rs. All this for $32,600.
Even more impressive on some levels is the 2004 CR-V, which is an SUV even I could learn to like. The CR-V first appeared in 1997, and was redesigned in 2002, still with a four-cylinder engine only. The chassis is straight from the Civic, which is one of the CR-V’s cardinal virtues. This is a car, not a truck, and it’s small enough to handle remarkably well.
Fuel economy is better in the Civic itself (32/38 in the DX sedan). All-wheel drive and the brick-like aerodynamics of the CR-V reduce it to 21/25. I’d still prefer a small station wagon, which would be much easier to load, but the CR-V ($22,210 as tested) is very credible on every level. It’s another winner from Honda.
