Honda launches new Silicon Valley facility, shows off ‘new old’ sports concept

Announced alongside the facelifted 2016 Accord sedan, the new centre will also play host to a concept that, although now three years old, has seen little time in the spotlight.

According to a reader at enthusiast website Jalopnik, a visit to the facility this week revealed that the concept is accompanied by a plaque that describes it as the Honda Sports Concept - a name last seen on a concept in the early 2000s.

For whatever reason, Honda has never felt compelled to give this new iteration of the HSC a proper unveiling - but, according to a spokesperson, it’s also never been a secret.

Above: photo via Twitter, @HondaProJason.

“It’s a three year old design study made by our LA advance design studio. It’s on permanent display in the lobby of our Silicon Valley R&D facility, and was on display at our press conference last week,” the spokesperson from Honda USA told Jalopnik.

“It’s not an S2000 or baby NSX, but it is an indication that our designers continually dream about sports cars.”

Honda has most recently been in the sports-car spotlight with a set of patent application images that surfaced in June, believed to preview a long-rumoured ‘baby NSX’. (Read more about that here.)

As for Honda’s new research facility, the carmaker says the new Silicon Valley centre will focus its attentions on unique mobility technologies.

According to Frank Paluch, Honda’s R&D boss in America, the centre will also bring the company’s different teams together to ensure that each department’s innovations are best utilised for future production potential.

The company, whose expertise are spread across cars, motorcycles, industrial equipment, aeronautics and robotics, will also use the new centre to collaborate with other companies.

"It's the next step in the expansion of what we've already done here, and this collaboration and partnership is going to give us new seeds that we can plant today to harvest the technologies of tomorrow,” Paluch said.

"We can't do it all ourselves, so we're trying to look more collaboratively."