Comments on: Toyota & Honda disagree on sports cars

By: figjam

figjam — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:02:53 +0000

HONDA MORE SAVVY THAN TOYOTA! WHO ARE YOU TRYING TO KID! honda australia are going backwards at a great rate of knots as well as japan they simply dont have the money there’s no savvy in that!

By: figjam

figjam — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:59:56 +0000

honda are just plain jealous because they dont have the money to produce a v10 supercar! GO TOYOTA STICK IT UP HONDA!

By: Devil's Advocate

Devil's Advocate — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 01:46:34 +0000

Mazda more conservative and lacking innovation compared to a lot of the other Japanese manufacturers etc? What the… What do you call the Rotary engine as well as their hydrogen developments/research? Not to mention being one of the first passenger cars in Australia to use AdBlue exhaust catalyst for diesel engines. Then there is the world first nanocatalyst technology that Mazda now use that reduces CO2 emissions whilst also reducing the amount of precious metals used in a catalytic converter by about 70%. Mazda, along with the VW/Audi group, were one of the first mainstream adopters of the petrol direct injection/turbo charged engine. Even now you can still pretty much count on one hand how many other manufacturers have one. Gee, I would hate to see what an innovative, non-conservative company does!

I thought Mazda was renowned for being one of the more innovative/quirky Japanese companies out there. That was part of the reason why they nearly went belly up in the 80s/90s. They tried to do too much!

I know there are plenty more ‘innovations’ like the more environmentally friendly production methods etc, but I will now mention one thing that should prove that Mazda are not one of the more conservative Japanese manufacturers. Love it or loathe it, you wouldn’t call Mazda’s current design theme conservative!

LOL: Anti spam – Mazda!!

By: Baddass

Baddass — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:58:03 +0000

A slight case of sour grapes, Honda?

By: jp

jp — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:56:05 +0000

think the point he is making is that they are conservative out of the janpanese brands which generally…. with a lot of things not just cars…. push the envelope and develop cars and technology in them a lot quicker! it is a fair point IMO

By: f1worldchamp

f1worldchamp — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:36:20 +0000

What about Renault then? They are ‘everyday, mass producers’ but still came up with a winning car. And you could argue that Mercedes and BMW are just as mass market at the rest, and they were still sucessful.
Ferrari is a different situation altogether. In the beginning, the road cars were only a way for Enzo to make money for the racing program. The F1 team is still the core of Ferrari, the road cars are periphary.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:30:01 +0000

Interesting take… I don’t think it is necessarily ‘sour grapes’ on Honda’s part though, even if there is a degree of ‘upholding corporate PR’ in there. Truth is, innovation should come from the top and filter down. Sportscars, like luxury cars should be embodying principles of sustainable car design. While I personally hope we never see the end of V8/10/12 engines and their heritage and exhaust note, truth is, at this level there is real opportunity to change the way ‘performance’ is achieved. an electic city-car is great, but an electric sportscar, in the style of Audi’s e-tron (for example) actually has the ability to change our perception of ‘bigger engine = performance’ and in the end, do more for moving car design forward than the smart / Prius will combined.

There’s arguments on both sides, and I’m far from picking one… I guess I can just see where Honda is angling here, by saying that now is the time that designers / engineers / manufacturers should really be looking to re-shape the industry and given the money available ‘at the top’, it’s a prime opportunity.

(And just quietly, I’d recommend a quick browse of wikipedia to whoever said that Honda and Toyota had no racing pedigree…. especially when it comes to Honda and F1).

By: Tom R

Tom R — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:20:45 +0000

BAHAHAHAHA Honda’s just covering up the fact that they pulled out of racing and discontinued the new NSX!!!

The era of V10′s isn’t gone, its not like we’re ALL driving around in them, so its hardly having an environmental impact for goodness sake!

By: Car Fanatic

Car Fanatic — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:57:18 +0000

and Toyota have racing history, Lemans, F1, rallying, Nascar etc etc, so alot of the development would have come from the racing history.

By: Jamison

Jamison — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:50:52 +0000

Reckless1

You dont think the results of the F1 competition is not affected by personnel?

Clearly, yes Toyota’s stubbornness affects their decision to spend x amount of dollars on certain aspects of racing. They spend a truck load more so than the rest, but you have to see the break down of that cost and you will see that a BIG chunk is for retrieval of race data and study to implement on everyday application.

Ferrari, Braun, Red Bull etc… they spend all they can on their cars for the sake of outright performance, which translate to wins, which benefits their image.
I think Toyota, and there is a lot of evidence of that, have entered the competition to help them produce supercar technology… and then reverse engineer for affordable use.

Ferrari and those companies have technology that WILL never be implemented to “everday” affordable application, because all their cars are for the RICH enthusiast who represent 1% of the total market.

So I wouldnt diss Honda, Toyota or other “everyday, mass” producers.. Because I can tell you honestly that they enter the competition for race data that benefits their mass produced cars. Basically the competition is a BIG “testing” evaluation ground for them.

And Honda, Toyota have shown they had success in motorsports in the past.
Ferrari and all the other marketing/pure racing teams are in it for the advertising $$$. Honda/Toyota too, but as stated above, have other agendas.