Affordable Accord

By ALASTAIR SLOANE motoring editor

Honda New Zealand promised a few months ago that the price of its new V6 Accord would be as competitive as the four-cylinder Accord Euro, arguably the best value-for-money sedan on the market.

"If you think the price of the Euro is good, wait until we launch the V6," said its marketing manager, Graeme Meyer.

Honda did just that last Wednesday, on roads between Christchurch and Hokitika. The V6 Accord costs $38,000 for the base model, $41,000 for the Sport and $47,000 for the premium Mugen. Go for the optional leather interior and the price of each model jumps between $3500 and $4000.

"Just as we did with the Euro, we are offering the V6 at a price which will grab the attention of potential customers, both in the private and corporate sectors," said Honda's managing director Graeme Seymour.

The Accord Euro costs $35,000 for the six-speed manual, $36,000 for the five-speed automatic and $42,000 for the fancypants luxury model.

The Euro range is powered by a 2.4-litre engine producing 140kW (187bhp). The 3-litre engine in the V6 range produces 177kW (237bhp) at 6250rpm and 287Nm at 5000rpm and is mated to a five-speed automatic transmission linked to a drive-by-wire throttle. Around 90 per cent of the torque is available from 2500rpm.

A reworked exhaust system in the top-range Mugen liberates an extra 12kW, which pushes up output to 189kW, or 253bhp. Mugen is the performance arm of Honda. The name in Japanese means "unlimited power". Roughly, "Mu" means "no" or "nothing" and "gen" means "limit" or "boundary".

The V6 marks the first time Honda has been fully represented in all major segments of the New Zealand car market.

The new car shares its interior design and some of its underpinnings with the Euro but is bigger all round than the four-cylinder.

The Euro was developed to compete against compact executive models in Europe. The V6 Accord is the American production model, influenced by the specific requirements of Honda's largest market.

Honda says it brought in two Accords because upper-medium car buyers in New Zealand are showing a preference for either a more compact, sporty four-cylinder car, or a bigger, more powerful six-cylinder. More than 1000 Accord Euros have been sold in five months.

"The dual Accord line-up gives us the chance to really throw down the gauntlet in the two most hotly contested classes in the local market," said Seymour.

"We've recently seen the impact that models with real charisma can have in both these market segments and we're looking forward to taking the game to yet another level.

"This will be a real opportunity for Honda to make some serious inroads, with a combination of market-leading product and a pricing strategy that is gaining genuine acceptance for its fairness and the way it protects the customer's investment."

The "pricing strategy" is Honda's "price promise", a non-discount philosophy it introduced two years ago when it restructured the way it did business in New Zealand.

Honda says the new V6 model boasts the best power-to-weight ratio of any non-turbocharged car in the mainstream six-cylinder segment.

The 177kW engine is a lighter, revised version of the 3-litre unit in the previous Accord and produces more power than the standard or supercharged version of the Holden Commodore V6.

"Only the 4-litre Ford Falcon is more powerful, but even this can't surpass the Accord V6 for its power-to-weight," says Honda.

The torsional rigidity of the Accord body is 27 per cent stiffer than the outgoing car, which improves ride and handling on the all-round double wishbone suspension set-up.

Equipment and safety levels are up there with the best in a car which the maker says is "one of the quietest Hondas ever produced".

The car not long ago won a five-car comparison run by American magazine Road & Track and was named as one of the 10 best cars of the year by Car & Driver.

The new V6 comes 27 years after the first Accord was unveiled in 1976. Since 1997, there have been two Accords - one larger model for the North American market and a smaller one for Europe and Japan.