Not of the same Accord

Honda Australia will introduce replacements for the both the Accord and the Accord Euro during the cooler months next year.

The Accord will continue to be an American design, but shrugs off the hit-or-miss style of the current model. Built in Thailand to take advantage of the Free Trade Agreement between Australia and the south-east Asian country, the new Accord is due to arrive in Australia around the end of the first quarter. It will be a substantially larger car than the current model, offering buyers the VCM V6 mentioned in our earlier article here.

At some point roughly mid-year, the new Accord Euro will also make its debut. The new car has been previewed as a concept, the Accord Tourer, at the Frankfurt Motor Show (more here) and will continue to be built in Japan.

As Mark Higgins, National Public Relations Manager for Honda Australia, tells it: "We can say that the Accord will be the first quarter of next year and we're hoping to have it for public display at the Melbourne Motor Show. Accord Euro will be around mid-year..."

Although the American Accord has grown in size, Higgins says that it and the Euro will continue to be marketed by Honda Australia along lines similar to the broader marketing push of the current models.

"It's maintaining the same strategy that we've had, which has been very successful for both models. We see with the current cars, as we [expect] with the future models, two very different sorts of buying groups buying the car. Both like Honda, both like the Accord nameplate, both have different needs and therefore buy the car that suits their needs best."

The respective differences in size between the two cars will help Honda to keep those different buyer types from confusing the two offerings. It will also, in the case of the American design, provide Honda Australia with the extra interior room to confront locally manufactured large cars such as the Camry/Aurion, 380 and even the rear-wheel drive rivals, Commodore and Falcon.

In describing the new Accord, Higgins remarked: "It's certainly a more handsome car and it's sportier than the current model. It's also a bigger car than the current model. It will be a true large car in the [VFACTS] large car segment."

Based on American specs converted to metric figures, the new Accord should be larger in every dimension than Toyota's Aurion and is roughly the same length as the current Ford Falcon (4930mm), although the Falcon is wider and has a longer wheelbase, which indicates that the Accord will carry a bit more overhang.

And right about the time Honda introduces the new Accord, Ford will also be bringing out a new Falcon.

Honda has previously aimed the current American design car at the local biggies, but whilst sales have been respectable, consumers wouldn't necessarily cross-shop the Accord against Holden's Commodore, the 'competitor' that was obliquely targeted in Honda's original TV advertisement when the car was released.

"The Accord sits in the large car segment now, but it's a bit like a large/mid-size car in the large car segment", said Higgins.

"[The new model is] going to be more of a large car than a mid/large car…"

As for the new Euro, Higgins felt that it would not be a radical departure from the the current car.

Whilst the 'American' Accord will be considerably different from the current car, the Euro will be, despite major sheet-metal changes, more of a progression than a leap forward.

Drawing an analogy with the second generation Mazda6, Higgins postulated that the next Accord Euro would be "evolutionary rather than revolutionary".

"If you've seen what Mazda has done with the '6', they've just given it a freshen-up and improved it all around", he said.

"And my understanding is that our Euro will be along the same sorts of lines."

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