With the Honda CR-Z HPD Street Performance concept, the automaker is signaling its intention to offer factory performance parts for its cars, something that despite the ubiquity of Honda tuning, the company has never really done. Honda Performance Development (HPD) is responsible for developing the parts that, for now, will be sold as dealer- or customer-installed aftermarket parts, but the division known for its racing success has bigger dreams than that.
"The overall goal, or I guess I should say the dream, would be to have a factory assembled vehicle with the HPD performance parts assembled on the line so the customer would be able to tick off a box and have the features and options of the performance version from the factory," said HPD's Manager of Street Performance, Philip LaPointe.
"I think that's a stretch goal." "For the time being," he continued, "we're going to focus on the dealer-installed parts. ... With the EPA, it's getting more and more difficult with emissions and the fuel economy is getting more and more difficult.
From the OEM side, we want to have really green cars, very clean for the environment, and it's very difficult to deliver performance at the same time. As a dealer-installed part, we have some opportunities to give them some more performance."
That's precisely what HPD did with the CR-Z, arguably the car in Honda's lineup that most needed their help. HPD's supercharger kit not only takes an estimated two seconds off the zero-to-60 mph time, but doesn't void your warranty like purely aftermarket solutions might. The results are impressive, no doubt, but when you're launching a new performance brand, why start with such a niche product?
"We wanted this program because we wanted to develop the systems and processes in place before we tackle the larger project, like the Civic, because the Civic we want to guarantee success of the program," LaPointe says.
When Japan said no to a big engine, non-hybrid CR-Z Si, the president of American Honda asked HPD to step in.
"Throughout the project we've had executive management support, which I think is very key, because there's been maybe not as much support in the past, but we had full support for this project," LaPointe said. As alluded, HPD's next project will be the far more significant Civic. LaPointe wouldn't talk about specific plans, but you can be sure it will be all about performance. The 2014 Honda Civic coupe is shown above.
"We have a philosophy, we don't have a few paragraphs defining it," LaPointe said. "It's more or less stating that with our name Honda Performance Development, we want to be able to focus on the performance side.
We don't want to water down the brand by giving any faux performance. We want to keep alliance of our motto of 'Track Proven, Street Reliable,' HPD Performance. There'll always be pressure to put our brand name on some item that's not performance-related, so we're going to have a strategy of how to protect our name. Right now, our name is built-up from IndyCar racing, we won LMP2 in Le Man two times, we've won the ALMS championship. It's the same associates in the building that work on these street performance parts, so we want to focus on true performance and that comes down to accelerating, stopping and cornering. We'll have to resist when someone wants to make a floormat with HPD on it, or you see all these widgets and gidgets and gizmos that have nothing to do with performance but are more of a branding exercise. We're trying our best not to go down that route." This philosophy isn't exclusive to cars, either.
When asked if there are any cars HPD wouldn't touch, LaPointe said that everything is on the table. "We're definitely open to anything.
We have the Ridgeline, and there's been some discussions with that team. They reached out to us because right now, that vehicle doesn't have enough performance options in the aftermarket.
It's a unique truck because of its monocoque construction and independent suspension, so it's a little more of a challenge if you want to put all-terrain tires and a lift kit on it. A project like that is something we would tackle.
"Our core-competency in the building, though, is cars and road course performance. There's some other expertise, like we did support a Pilot Baja project over the last couple of years that won its class with an HPD engine, so that's something I can see us working on in the future. It comes down to what the customer wants, what the dealers say, what the press is saying, so we're trying to listen and make improvements.
We want to be flexible." That flexibility extends beyond the Honda brand as well. LaPointe confirmed that HPD is looking into performance parts for Acura models, too.
"[Our plan] does include Acura and there's been some discussion if we're going to actually use the HPD brand or not," he said. "It's not decided yet."
If the plan includes Acura, then does that mean it includes the new NSX as well?
"We're very interested in working on that project," LaPointe said. "I'm not sure what we'll be doing with it, but I'm sure there will eventually be a racecar version of it.
We're helping them with possibly some street performance versions as well."
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