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Taylor-ConstantineCar and Driver
From the May 1977 issue of Car and Driver.
Everybody likes the Honda Accord. Each cynical road-tester we set adrift with the car returned a hopeless Accord fanatic. Even now, legions of Honda Accord zealots are touting it as everything from the ultimate urban-car to the super-est super coupe. So let’s cut loose and admit that the Accord is both a stunning achievement and, at a sticker price just over $4000, a stupefying value. Why, the Accord is the very thing we’ve been looking for.
At first, the Accord might seem like just another transportation module cast in the familiar mold of front-wheel drive and hatchback, a Honda Civic with a thyroid condition. But a long list of standard features belies its heritage. Indeed, the long list of equipment featured on the Accord might have been pinched from a far more elaborate and expensive automobile: five-speed transmission, rack-and-pinion steering, radial tires, AM/FM radio, tricky side-window defrosters and a hatchback window wiper.
This grab bag of obligatory standard equipment may merely be some wily Honda sales strategy, but it seems to demonstrate an eminently sensible approach to automobile construction. In one mad stroke, Honda has invented an automobile that appeals not only to the vast middle ground of car-buyers, but to both extremes of the spectrum as well, the rationalists and the sports. Stripped-down, base-price cars, though the most rational of items, tend to attract a limited audience willing to endure bare-metal interior finishes and rubber floor mats. While the Accord’s size and gas mileage are wholeheartedly rational, Honda refused to cripple the Accord’s list of standard features in order to provide an affordable price. Building only one Accord model simplifies the firm’s task, just as it did Henry Ford’s, but Honda then broadened the car’s appeal by installing all the luxuries.
The Accord marshals every desirable trend in small-car design. In a Teutonic spirit of efficiency, every cranny of this Honda is functional, from the most informative of instrument panels to the tiny change tray installed in the dash. The car’s 15,000-mile tune-up intervals suggest the ultimate in Japanese reliability. Responsive controls snap it around with the zest of an Italian sport coupe. And underneath it all, the comfort quotient is pure American: lots of interior space and seats with enough fore-and-aft travel to accommodate even really gross people.
Some dealers have reportedly taken advantage of the Accord’s popularity and bumped up their profit margins with outrageous preparation costs and other strategies, but Honda hopes that the 60,000 Accords it will bring into the U.S. in 1977 will solve the scarcity problem, reduce the waiting time (currently about three months) and bring the dealers into line. Evidently, the Accord’s success caught Honda without a reserve of production capacity, and the firm has been hurriedly converting Civic assembly lines to meet the demand.
Scuttling around in the Accord is guaranteed to bring a maniacal grin to the face of even the most hidebound rationalist. Darting past mail trucks and shutting the door on taxis is never a problem, thanks to the agile handling and hard-hitting brakes. You can even indulge in a little heavy yelling with Teamsters, backed up by the assurance that the Accord’s five-speed box permits a flashy getaway and shifts as positive as a ratchet from Snap-on Tools.
Perhaps more important than the Accord’s grins-per-mile and mechanical harmony, however, is the way in which it captures the thinking of Japanese automakers. Real value, Honda suggests, is more than merely a cheap price, and transportation is far more than a econobox. It’s the Honda Accord—the very thing we’ve been looking for.
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Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com
