Honda designer talks about Next Sportscar

TOKYO -- Honda Motor Co., aiming to re-energize its performance cred, is studying a revival of an S2000-type sporty car.

The automaker's top exterior designer says he wants a midlevel sporty car added to the lineup between the two sports cars under development. A revived Acura NSX will debut atop the automaker's lineup in 2015. And at the bottom, Honda is targeting Japan with a sporty minicar inspired by the Small Sports EV Concept shown at the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show.

"We are making the NSX and the small sporty minicar," Toshinobu Minami said in a recent interview at Honda's global design center. "Naturally, I personally want something in between."

Although his comments represented his own ambitions, such an entry was under study, he said. He declined to give details.

To properly nurture sports-car nameplates, a company must keep making them, Minami said, criticizing Honda's decision to drop sports cars when the global financial crisis hit.

"Don't quit," said Minami, who oversees global exterior design for the Acura and Honda brands. "Quitting the NSX and the S2000 is the thing I regret most."

Honda dropped the NSX in 2005 and scrubbed plans to revive it in 2008, as the foundering global economy undercut earnings. The company said at the time it needed more practical offerings. In January 2009, it said it was killing the S2000 roadster, a jaunty rear-wheel-drive, four-cylinder convertible, after a 10-year run.

Each car had a loyal following.

It is important to keep selling sporty cars "no matter what condition the company is in," Minami said. "It maintains that relationship with the customer."

He said the Honda brand's current sporty offering, the hybrid CR-Z compact hatchback, fills an important niche because of its electrified drivetrain. But the lineup also needs a more traditional driver's car, he said.

"I want to keep hybrid sports cars like the CR-Z," Minami said. "I also want to do something like the original S2000 we used to have. I want to do both."

Rediscovering Honda's roots is a top priority, he said.

"We have lost a bit of our sportiness while retaining good functionality," Minami said. "First, we want sportiness. The thing I want most is to recover our uniqueness."


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