Sheesh, and I thought I was an old fuddy-duddy. CB360? When was that? 40, 50 years ago? The twin or four cylinder?

Ordinary cars back then didn't have fuel injection of any sort, few if any emission controls, disc breaks. Air condition, power steering and brakes were options on all but luxury cars.

BTW, the executive jet is highly rated.

Hondas are not perfect and judging from the long list that proceeds Honda and the even longer one that follows, I'd say that there's room for improvement. But if a company doesn't improve, expand, innovate, diversify, it dies. Studebaker used to make somre pretty good cars and the Raymond Lowy coupe was spectacular ... on the outside. Same old engine, transmissions, etc. Pretty much the same with the Avanti. Later they were produced with light V8s, Ford and Chevy. Still OHV push rod engines.

 

My 360 was a two cylinder model, right before the hawk came out. There was never a 360 4 cylinder model, but they did have a 350 4 cylinder. My bro had one and it was a very smooth, but busy engine. I later had a 400 4 super sport that was one of the smoothest bikes I've ever owned.

I think that maybe the real problem with honda is that it is no longer honda. The name remains the same, but Sochiro Honda died in 1991 and Takeo Fujisawa in 88. With their passing, the company just wouldn't be the same. I know old Japanese guys who were kids in 1940, and Japan produced a different breed of men back then. They grew up in the rubble of post-war Japan (one guy I know remembers passing burning bodies as his family escaped the fire bombing) and they oversaw the reconstruction.

Look at Sochiro Honda's bio and you'll see what I mean. Working for a guy like that wouldn't be like your average corporate environment. He'd know you personally, and if you had anything to do with sagging bumpers on one of his babies, he would have personally flensed the skin off of your body with one of your saggy bumpers.

Nowadays, it's a multinational corporation with nothing but an army of bean counters in charge of a bunch of slovenly employees.

 

In other words, it's become Chrysler.

 

I've rented hundreds of cars over the years, and been stuck with a number of Chrysler products. Honda is NOT Chrysler.

 

I don't think it's that bad, but the fact remains that the inspiration that drove honda is gone, and that's not a good thing. It's like steve jobs dying. Now apple is still apple, but not really. There is no "mister thunder" to poke his head into an office and say "you either do what I tell you, or you're gonna spend the rest of your days cleaning the VIP toilet!"

When Sochiro Honda decided to start manufacturing motorcycles in the states, he was bucking the idea that Americans aren't capable of meeting the exacting standards of Japanese. I think he was proven correct in that.

But now with these recurring problems such as misaligned dashboards and saggy bumpers coming out of the various plants, there is nobody who is going to tell the suits that this was a mistake, and that there are serious defects that aren't being addressed.

He had a vision that basically went like this: Employees will be happy producing things that they are proud to produce; Sales people will be happy selling cars; customers will be happy with their purchase of a Honda.

If at any point, an employee felt their skill was being ignored in favor of corporate profits, he would have been able to tell him. If a salesman felt like he was being forced to sell an inferior product, he had an audience, and any customer that felt he didn't get the best value for his money, that customer would have been listened to.

That's not happening now. There are no honda reps reading this forum so they could learn that we do have some issues with build quality, and that is because it is now a corporation with no vision and no direction.

Sochiro Honda cheated in high school, and helped his classmates cheat to graduate. But his greatest crime was being caught cheating. He learned from that mistake, and went on to produce products that were perfect, It wasn't the cheating that he was ashamed of, but rather the imperfection that allowed him to be caught cheating.

That vision is now gone.

 

Yeah, of all the crimes against humanity, saggy bumpers has to be right up there with the worst of them.

What planet are you from? Return post haste from whence you came.

Oh, and I'm sure there's a rocking chair waiting for you from which you can throw rocks at dogs.

 

While I'm a not a Honda fan boy, I like them. I have admired Sochiro Honda for a long time from knowing that the built the company from absolutely nothing in post war Japan.

But Belch has gone way, way overboard in his criticism of the present day Honda Corporation. The company has, like most, current ups and downs. It looks like Honda is headed back up .. Civic Si, Type R, and the Acura NSX. Hint they will NOT be perfect, but they will be exciting.

No company is perfect, no perfect car has ever been produced, never will.

Now Belch can go bloviate and build his Sochiro Honda shrine.