Five signs Honda cares about enthusiasts, again - several Civic X reasons

Honda Motor Co. has sold out all 8,600 of its new roadsters slated for production this year and is fully booked through June. The only problem: four in five buyers of the $16,000 sports car are over 40.

That is a much older demographic than other models in the lineup and many of these older customers are repeat customers buying the coupe as a second car, according to Misato Fukushima, a company spokeswoman. It’s also a contrast to the last sports car Honda introduced in 1999, the S2000. Back then, only one in five buyers were over 40 years of age.

While the older repeat buyers show Honda has a strong following of longtime fans, a failure to attract younger customers will hurt the prospects for the carmaker in its home market. The problem isn’t confined to Honda. Stagnating annual incomes and an efficient public transportation system means many younger people in Japan don’t see a need to own a car. The number of driver license holders under the age of 40 has fallen 46 percent over the last 13 years.

“It will be a big challenge for Honda to lure younger buyers,” said Yoshiaki Kawano, an analyst at IHS Automotive. “If you compare the demographic feature and average income with 20 years ago, I would say the motivation for young people to buy such a car could be quite limited.”

Honda expected the S660 to be popular among older customers but believes the proportion of young buyers will rise gradually, said Fukushima.

Maverick Image
With the S660, Honda is betting that its risk-taking -- the car is designed by a prodigy in his 20s with no engineering experience -- will revive its image as a maverick among the major carmakers, a producer of interesting cars rather than just nondescript mass-market compact models.

Demand for the S660 has been brisk and Honda plans to restart taking orders from October.

For Hitoshi Arai, 66, driving his brand-new S660, top down, through the countryside two to three times a month feels like a breath of fresh air, literally. The retired bank employee’s two adult sons, both in their 30s, haven’t shared in the rides.

“The elder one has shown some interest but the younger one just has no interest in cars at all,” said Arai, who also owns a Honda sport utility vehicle. “He would rather ride his bicycle.”

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Administrator said:

Hopefully this is a sign that Honda USA cares about its fans too.

http://www.civicx.com/threads/honda-s660-roadster-first-review.20/#post-1128

Honda USA has gone on record about considering adding the S660 to the lineup.

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RobbJK88 said:

Given that Toyota is now going to have 2 dedicated sports cars (coupes at that) with lingering rumors that a Celica could also make a reappearance (patent filings for the name in the US) it's pretty sad state of affairs that "boring" toyota is going to have more real sporty entries than Honda, albeit, Toyota's sporty models thus far have been produced by OTHER automakers (subaru, BMW).

Honda made steps in the right direction with the Civic X, and even the new Accord sport trims. Their "save the manual" is probably their biggest claim to enthusiasts while arguably gatekeeping most of their sporty models from a larger demographic of buyers by not also offering quick shifting auto options.

With rumors that the civic coupe could go the way of the Accord coupe (here's hoping thats a no) Honda really needs to reinvest in some niche' products that will elevate their enthusiast roots. A new prelude or s2000 would be a good start. A true CRX replacement would be another great start. They've got the platform and engines to make some awesome sports cars, but are generally too conservative to use them for fear of sales flops (CRZ, NSX, etc).

If honda were to drop the civic coupe, they need to create a more dedicated sports coupe, either a Prelude that slots between the civic and accord in size with a price ranging from $25-35k that offers the 1.5T as well as 2.0T as well as FWD and AWD depending on trims OR a smaller CRX revival. Honda could easily use one of the turbos to create a lightweight drop top to compete with the Miata as well.

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