TIME TO FREED! HONDA MALAYSIA DEBUTS THE NEW FREED IN MALAYSIA.

Honda Malaysia Sdn Bhd today introduced the New Freed in Malaysia. This Best Urban MPV adopts Honda’s innovative technology that offers spaciousness, stylish design, advanced features and quality. The New Freed enhances both driver’s and passengers’ comfort with its practicality, improved features, interior and exterior design. These transformations make the improved version of Freed an even ideal car for young professional urban families, who aspire for a quality lifestyle.

TOV talks to Erik Berkman on the new NSX

For readers who are not members or a regular at our forums, TOV principal Jeff Palmer met up briefly with Erik Berkman, one of the lead designers of the new 2G NSX during the recent NAIAS. As the conversation was informal, Jeff did not put it in a formal article but shared it in our forums. Extracted and quoted below are Jeff's quick summary of his conversation with Berkman.

Civic loses best seller status in the U.S.

One victory but also one defeat. 

In the U.S., the Honda Civic has dissappointly lost its best seller status to the Toyota Prius for last year (2012), totalling 57,124 units sold compared to 60,688 units sold for the Prius. This despite an early MMC to address the concerns from media and long time Honda fans. While many and even Honda themselves have been harping on the original 9G (i.e. pre MMC) Civic being best seller in response to criticisms of the interior and other items, the early MMC was very well received so personally the loss of the best seller status for 2012 was a big surprise and dissappointment to me. 

In third place comes the Toyota Camry, with 50,250 total units sold in 2012 which is again a dissappointment to me as I had expected/was hoping that the new Accord would have helped Honda take this spot. 

Nevertheless, all is not lost as Honda seems to have acquired a greater urgency and a better appreciation and response to the opinions of Honda supporters of late so hopefully things improves this year.

Honda regains No2 spot for total sales in the Japanese domestic market

After a 10 years wait, Honda finally regained its No.2 spot in the sales chart for the JDM (japanese domestic market), an achievement last made in 2002. While once again playing 2nd fiddle to mighty Toyota, Honda's total sales for 2012 is close to 50% that of Toyota, coming in at almost 750k versus Toyota's 1.65 million. Coming in close at Honda's heels is the unexpected pair of Daihatsu and Suzuki, both also achieving almost 650k total sales, and pushing the traditional strongmen of Nissan and Mazda down to No.5 and No.6 respectively.

Honda's best selling model remains the ever amazing Fit (Jazz), with the newest variant the Fit Hybrid and Fit Wagon contributing significantly to last year's sales. The Fit ended 2012 as the 3rd best selling car in the JDM selling almost 210k units. The top selling car in Japan remains the mighty Toyota Prius, ending the year with almost 320k units. Other than that, the Freed also did extremely well, ending the year in No.4 spot as top selling car in 2012.

The chart above, as well as the data in this post are provided by our Japan TOV contributor Daniel Garcia.

Top Selling Cars for 2012, Japanese Domestic Market (JDM)

1) Toyota Prius : 317,675 (+25.8%)
2) Toyota Aqua : 266,567 (new)
3) Honda Fit : 209,276 (+0.7%)
4) Honda Freed : 106,316 (+57.0%)
5) Toyota Vitz : 105,611 (-18%)

New Honda model - 'Urban SUV'

On display at the concluding NAIAS is Honda's latest new model, an SUV based on the popular Honda Fit/Jazz. Done as a global model, meaning to be sold in all countries in the world, Honda is finally and wisely capitalizing on the hugely popular Fit/Jazz platform. 

A SUV smaller than the CR-V but available worldwide is sorely needed by Honda and this new model meets that need. The car on display at the NAIAS is a concept but is indicative of the new model which Honda says will go on sale in Japan at the end of this year (2013), and then followed by 'sequential introductions' in other countries around the world.

Honda Gear Concept

While all attention and lots of excitement have been focussed on the updated 2G NSX Concept in the NAIAS, Honda quietly slipped in a new concept car, the Honda Gear in the Montreal Motor Show which was running concurrently with the NAIAS.

To many long-time Honda fans, this Honda Gear is no less as exciting as the updated NSX Concept and in some ways even better as it promises something all real-world Honda fans can actually look forward to owning - IF Honda is smart enough to listen to feedback and put it into production (without messing it up of course).

New NSX Concept at the 2013 NAIAS

Currently, all our attention are focussed on the NAIAS, the North American International Motor Show where three significant cars are on display from Honda and Acura. These are first and foremost the much anticipated updated new NSX concept car, this time with a full concept interior as told to us by our resident insider. Honda/Acura also put up the prototype of the new Acura MDX for the show. And on the Honda side, the new Urban SUV Concept, based on the Fit/Jazz platform, makes it world debut at this show. We have multiple, in depth coverage of these vehicles on our main site the Temple of VTEC. For the convenience of readers, the articles related to the new NSX concept car are below:

Honda PR for the new NSX concept

TOV proprietry photos of the new NSX concept

TOV exclusive video - interview with John Ikeda on the new NSX concept

The photo above is from our own collection. Our complete selection can be viewed at our relevant article in the 2nd link above.

Spy photo of new Honda Stream

 

It is in chinese but one can probably make it fairly readable by using something like Google translation. The chinese website 'sohu' has put up a photo of what seems to be a Honda Stream in the standard disguise colour scheme. The photo in question is above. The sohu page in question is http://auto.sohu.com/20130111/n363067470.shtml.

Update new NSX Concept for Detroit Motor Show ?

There are lots of talk about Honda (via Acura) putting out an updated version of the new NSX concept on this coming Detroit (2013) Motor Show. Claims are that the updates includes the interior as well. The photo above was put up by a TOV forumer in our TOV forums but is probably taken from another website. 

Our resident ex-Honda 'insider' told us that Honda/Acura wanted early feedback from 'respected car people' and dealers as they take this new NSX very seriously. According to him, the first Concept was just the Designers idea on the general layout Exterior of the project. This 2nd concept includes the designers general layout of the interior, which is where they are looking for early feedback on. So if feedback indicates the interior is wrong, its still early enough to change it. The shell or exterior will not change much on this Concept Mule but the dimensions will be more correct on this one.

Personally, I am very curious about what constitutes 'respected car people'...

Our TOV forum thread is question is http://www.vtec.net/forums/one-message?message_id=1125433&page_number=1#1125433.

Zengő Motorsport Selects Honda’s Civic for WTCC

The Hungarian-based private team Zengő Motorsport confirmed today that they will enter the next two seasons of the FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) with the Honda Civic WTCC. The car will be driven by Hungarian driver Norbert Michelisz.

William De Braekeleer, Motorsport Manager Honda Motor Europe Ltd., said of the announcement:

Honda Malaysia (Sales and Marketing) moved office

Honda Malaysia's sales and marketing division has shifted from their old office to CP Tower along the Sprint Highway.