My enthusiasm is waning

I’ve been a Honda / Acura person since 1990 and although I wouldn’t dismiss buying cars from other manufacturers, I always had been fond of the Honda vehicle family’s style.

I began questioning my fondness when Honda wrecked the Accord line in the early 2000s for North America by creating a special Accord model instead of bringing over the Euro line. My worries were somewhat assuaged when the Acura TSX became available, which is – surprise – a Euro Accord. This is in fact the car I ended up buying. But I was still worried that Honda’s tendencies were headed in the wrong direction.

My worries were somewhat reinforced with the release of the new Insight – the supposed 'Prius killer'. Prius groupie maybe........ killer - not so much. The Insight did make it somewhat more affordable to own a hybrid, but dumped all the technological pizazz that made the Prius such a desirable car. Pass.

Acura isn’t doing much to impress me lately with their newest offerings either. The new models all sport this horrendous chrome-heavy front grille that looks like something from a badly imagined near-future sci-fi B-movie.

Now Honda is introducing a car to try to appeal to the older Boomer crowd, the Accord Crosstour. It’s a sewagon.... or is that wagedan? Whatever you want to call it – it’s ugly. I’ve been reading the forums and comments on the review articles and I’m not the only one who feels this way. Rumour has it that Honda will bring the Accord Euro Tourer (just call it a freaking wagon, OK?) to Canada next year in the form of an Acura TSX Tourer (wagon). At least that car doesn’t look so ugly.... yet.

If Honda isn’t careful, they’re going to lose a lot of customers to Audi, Toyota/Lexus and Nissan/Infiniti. If I was actually in the market for a new car today, I pretty sure I would not be visiting a Honda or Acura dealership at this point. Which is sad. Because I used to love these cars.