Distinction Still Comes between Honda and Acura
John Mendel, executive vice president of automobile operations for American Honda Motor Co., presents a more Acura and Honda distinction.
“Acura, in my mind, has always been a moon orbiting Honda. It benefits from everything Honda has but is still subject to all decisions Honda made,” says Mendel. Although Acura is young in automotive terms, it has left a difference especially in the past year. Acura has a separate research and design facility in Japan and a separate and distinct global design center in Southern California. Both are focused on developing a special kind of Acura for a customer that is different from Honda’s.
Though Honda and Acura customers may be related on some demographics, like age, they greatly differ in terms of psychographics. “Household income, interests, hobbies are a completely different psychographic. This is probably the first time we’ve taken a cohesive look at who is in the center of the bull’s eye for where the brand is going. That helps our designers, engineers and everybody who works on the brand now — and it helps they are not working on the Accord Monday, Wednesday and Friday and the TL on Tuesday and Thursday,” Mendel says.
“In some cases, yes,” responds Mendel when asked if Honda and Acura will continue to share platforms. “You can do amazing things with platforms – stretch them, widen them, lengthen them, use different engine configurations, get vastly different dynamics from a similar platform but deliver the attributes of the attached brand,” he continued. Additionally, future Acuras will highlight performance that drivers can live with every day.