Design
Senior Member
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2015
- Threads
- 28
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- 3,329
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- Location
- Southern California
- Vehicle(s)
- 09 MS3, 17 ABM Si Sedan
The problem (or blessing) is that Si sales continue to be strong in their current form. And historically, Honda has had no desire to increase yearly production of this trim. Likely due to pressures from CAFE standards.There is a market for Si versions of all Hondas. What it takes is an automatic version of it. I know that is like a kick in the nuts to a lot of people here. They like to be unique, elite, exclusive, or whatever. When you make any model or trim manual only, you eliminate 95% of the buying public from wanting to drive it. Then of the remaining 5%, you have to ask "Do they want to buy it?", "Can they afford to buy it?" and if the answer to those questions is Yes then finally "Will they buy it?". And then you wind up with like less than 1% of that 5%. I'm not saying they shouldn't offer a manual, they always should(bring on the manual Odyssey!). I'm saying that they should always offer an automatic, and that will make up the majority of sales that will finance the R&D and production for the rest of the people that want the manual, so they can't say "Well we offered that car but nobody bought it so we had to cancel it".
Like Ford, Honda believes the auto dilutes the driving experience for this particular segment. So as long as the 6MT continues to sell, I don't believe this will change anytime soon (for better or worse).
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