Why Automakers need to bring their Racing Tech to the Street.

"Jonathon Klein" (jonathon-klein) 04/21/2014 at 10:49 • Filed to: Racing Problems, Honda

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A few days ago, Honda released the first images of their new LMP2 car. They aren't racing it under the Honda flag, but rather will sell it to privateers and teams that want to use their design and engines. It has a 2.8l twin turbo V6, good for around 500hp. It weighs practically nothing. It has a 75 liter endurance rated fuel tank and all the other race car bits that you would expect to find on a world class endurance prototype. Here is the part where I have an issue. In the press release, Honda claims that it shares certain design configurations and parts from the new Acura's engines. Now I understand why they want to showcase these "certain" parts. It is to say that, "see, our cars are designed by racecar engineers, the same cars you get to drive on the road!" But in all reality, they couldn't be further from the truth. This especially is true for Honda. They are one of the biggest car manufacturers with a presence in racing, yet their entire line up of cars is chock full of boring beige commuter cars. Name one good looking or racy Honda? Here is a hint, there's none.

( This and the Civic don't count )

It's great that car manufacturers go racing, in fact, I want more of them to go out and challenge their company to perform at the track. However, part of that equation is the marketing side. Going racing showcases your design and engineering, and it shows the consumer that you have the proven ultimate technology that will be available in their lineup. However, in reality if the lineup is void of cars that performance oriented cars, all that racing sponsorship is for naught. Honda in particular can showcase all the race proven technology they want, but when they don't offer something that us consumers can have on the street, then that racing program really doesn't make financial sense. Racing is supposed to inspire the consumer to believe that they can have, even if it is just a small piece, the automakers high performance-racing car.

Think about the biggest names in racing, Mercedes, McLaren, Ford, and Chevy. They all offer performance oriented cars for the average consumer. All of them can declare their racing successes and how they bring that experience and technology to their consumer cars. Look at the newest Z06 from Chevy. It wasn't just the consumer side engineers that created it, but it was co-developed with their endurance racing team. They can show their lineage, show their technical prowess, and give it back to the consumer. McLaren is showcasing its Formula 1 experience with the hybrid technology in the P1. And it's the same way with many of the other manufacturers that go racing. Toyota for example, used to have the same problem that Honda has, until it came out with the F lineup in Lexus, the Scion FR-S, and possibly into the future the FT-1. Unlike Honda, Toyota is making an effort to showcase their prowess, technology, innovation, and racing performance in having performance road cars.

All the press and marketing that Honda does for its racing division doesn't really matter unless they have something to back it up. Honda used to make some really great cars and some of those cars brought you closer to their racing department. But that has long since been the case. Now Honda is only offering boring cars, which flies in the face of their racing heritage and sponosrship.

Honda isn't the only manufacturer guilty of this, but is the most obviously party. If any auto manufacturer has a racing department and nothing in their consumer car lineup to back up that racing, all the money and publicity will be for nothing. Think about it this way. You are sitting on your couch or in the grandstands and see a racing car screaming by with the car maker's name on it. You think to yourself you really want a piece of that racing car for your everyday car. You go to the auto maker's dealership or website and look around for something similar, but inevitably find nothing. What was the gain? A click? A view? Some form of ad revenue? It doesn't make financial sense to have a super expensive racing program without a true sports oriented car.

( Purest form of Vaporware ever!)

Next year, Honda will be back as an engine supplier in Formula 1, and will race in Endurance series, and SuperGT out of Japan, and a whole host of other series, but none of this will matter. Without a proper sports oriented consumer car, Honda's racing department means nothing except to those in the department. I sincerely doubt that Honda corporate is seeing any real revenue stream come from their racing department on the consumer level. This is just plain sad, Honda does make some really great race cars, engines, and other parts. What they need right now is to reignite their passion for great road going cars. They need to finally put out the NSX or come out with something new, something fun, and not another boring commuter that only dreams it is a racecar.

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Photo Credit to Honda, and Autoblog

daender > Jonathon Klein 04/21/2014 at 11:03

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My thoughts exactly, Honda has absolutely zero sports cars (fuck the Si) left to show any credibility of on-track experience trickling down to their production cars. I have a strong feeling the NSX will be a failure if Honda's planning on selling an only-400 hp high performance sports car for nearly six figures when it can be outperformed by a lightly modified 2015+ Corvette/Camaro/Mustang.

tromoly > Jonathon Klein 04/21/2014 at 11:12

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False. Though you may not see it outright, technology and techniques from the racing division are later implemented on consumer vehicles, just not in an outright performance vehicle.

Jonathon Klein > tromoly 04/21/2014 at 11:24

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But when most of the people watching racing would rather be racing themselves, why not put a performance oriented product out there?

avens > Jonathon Klein 04/21/2014 at 11:48

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The main problems with Honda, the reasons why they have been cheaping out and why their cars have not been innovating for quite a while are:

1. The economic crisis (the real one from 2008) hit it hard.

2. Coincidentally some of its big names retired at that exact moment or in the same decade.

After dealing with those problems then comes making sports and halo cars, which aren't what pays the bills even though we all would have liked to see a road legal HSV. I'm actually quite surprised they are going back to F1.

Fitting, dat sound dat redline:

tromoly > Jonathon Klein 04/21/2014 at 11:55

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Ok, so that puts it in a little more perspective. You're asking why a company doesn't bring their racing tech and build a performance vehicle to showcase all of it. I'm saying that companies use that racing tech to improve their consumer cars in subtle ways, keeping it more backstage rather than front-and-center.

Jonathon Klein > avens 04/21/2014 at 11:55

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Holy hell, that sounds great!

Jonathon Klein > tromoly 04/21/2014 at 11:57

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Yeah and that tech is good and all, but they are missing a large part of the consumer market that would like more performance, especially with a company like Honda that has such a pedigree.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > Jonathon Klein 04/21/2014 at 11:59

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Remember when Honda used to make this? You know why they don't anymore? Because it doesn't sell enough to make it worth their while. Enthusiasts care about cars. We care enough to bitch when companies don't make the car we want. But there aren't enough enthusiasts that spend enough money for it to be worth Honda's time to make the high performance car you want them to make.

And as others have said, there is a lot more to racing than just go fast bits. The knowledge they gain regarding reliability, weight savings and safety in racing all go into making those boring, beige commuter cars.

Jonathon Klein > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 04/21/2014 at 12:02

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I know, but why spend all that money and not bring anything fast back to the consumer? They are spending millions upon millions of dollars to go racing, and to build race cars, wouldn't they want to bring some of that to the consumer side?

quirt > Jonathon Klein 04/21/2014 at 12:20

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The HSV-010 GT isn't vaporware. .

Jonathon Klein > quirt 04/21/2014 at 12:24

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Nope, but the NSX that it's supposedly based on is.

quirt > Jonathon Klein 04/21/2014 at 12:32

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I mean, it DOES exist. Just only sort of. For now.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > Jonathon Klein 04/21/2014 at 14:32

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Because the consumer isn't paying extra for go fast bits. People want safety, mileage and comfort. Outside of the enthusiast community people aren't willing to pay to go fast. And the enthusiast community is too small for automakers to invest huge sums of money into making a low volume car that only a fraction of enthusiasts might buy.

As for bringing stuff back to the consumer side, they bring a ton of stuff back. It is just transparent to the average user. Crash structures and weight savings go a long way towards making cars safer and more efficient. Stuff like that gets huge advancements through racing, you just don't think about it when you hop in your car. Things like coil on plug ignition, drive by wire throttles, electronic engine management, brake force distribution, traction control, you name it racing has created or improved it to a huge degree. And those things get put on pretty much any car you can name. Racing technology has more applications than just going fast.

Jonathon Klein > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 04/21/2014 at 14:45

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I understand that, but the enthusiast community is large enough that Ford, Chevy, Chrysler, Subaru, VW, Seat, Alfa, Jag, Nissan, Mitsubishi since they still make the Evo for now, Toyota, Porsche, Hyundai, Mercedes, Audi, BMW to a lesser extent now, even Kia all have some form of performance oriented car. I'm not asking for a full line up, I'm saying that having such a racing pedigree, like Honda, it does them a disservice in not having anything sporty to offer the consumers.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > Jonathon Klein 04/21/2014 at 15:17

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I don't think that Alfa, Jag, Porsche, Mercedes, Audi or BMW belong in that list. They are relatively small companies that at least in America are based on luxury vehicles and sports cars.

Ford, Chevy and Chrysler are large companies that can afford to build "halo" cars. But between them they sell what, four models of sports cars?

Besides the GT-86/FR-S, what does Toyota sell that is sporty? And to develop that it wasn't worth it for Toyota to develop on their own so they entered into the partnership with Subaru. Once we're talking Subaru, add on the WRX/STi, but those share a chassis with their volume Impreza. And the STi was developed back in the day as a homologation WRC chassis. Subaru is still pretty involved in rally so it makes sense that they continue to sell a high performance trim of their volume car.

As for VW and Seat, I'm not too familiar with their sporty lineups. Outside of a high performance trim of their volume hatches do they sell anything else that is high performance? And currently VW group is what, second largest automaker in the world based on volume. If they can't justify a sports car specific chassis for their volume brands, there isn't a market for it.

Mitsubishi has carried on the Evo which is another car that was born out of WRC homologation requirements. But since their involvement in high level rally has essentially ended they don't see the benefit in continuing to develop the Evo line and it is being dropped, or at least allowed to shrivel and die.

As for Hyundai and Kia I'm drawing a complete blank on performance models.

Car companies decide what vehicles to make and what kind of options to give them based on profits. Honda has decided that they can't currently make a sports car or a sporty trim based on its projected profits. Honda is doing what is best for their bottom line. And unfortunately for the enthusiast community that doesn't include a sporty car.

Jonathon Klein > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 04/21/2014 at 15:49

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Hyundai has the Genesis, and Kia is bring the Stinger Concept to production. But I can see why Ze Germans shouldn't be on the list, but again I'm not talking about a range of sports cars, maybe just one would be good enough.

And you say Ford, Chevy and Chrysler are large companies that can afford to build a halo car, but Honda isn't? Honda made 6 billion in profit last year. Ford made only slightly more with 7 billion. Honda can afford to make a sports car. And they don't need to make a specific chassis or one off anything. All I'm asking for is something fun and sporty. Toyota is actually making quite bit off the FR-S here in the states. They over shot what they originally thought they would sell a year. So much so that Nissan saw this and decided to do their own FRS fighter with the IDx. And then to follow the FRS up, they are most likely going to make the FT-1.

There is definitely a case for a performance car for pretty much all brands. It doesn't have to be volume, but at least offer something that connects your racing to your consumer products a bit more than some behind the scenes architecture.

tromoly > Jonathon Klein 04/21/2014 at 16:10

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Ah, I see now. You have a very strong view on what should be done, you look around and see other people who have a similar interest in cars, therefore those other people would also agree with what you think the company should do.

I understand what you are saying, but what you're saying doesn't take into account any market research companies have done for their demographic market to see what they should actually produce. Just because you personally may want one type of vehicle doesn't mean everyone want that same vehicle.

Also, NSX. Just saying.

Jonathon Klein > tromoly 04/21/2014 at 16:20

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I agree with you that the company needs to justify this, but looking strictly at the fanbase of Honda, looking at their profits, looking at the racing heritage and technology, looking at how much racing they actually sponsor. It flabbergasts me that they don't have a performance oriented car anymore.

It doesn't have to be a whole line of cars. But they definitely have the room and the know how to do this. Strictly from the marketing standpoint, why put all that money into showing the world that you are the fastest or best around a race track when you don't make anything that actual consumers can put around a race track?

JACU - I've got bonifides. > Jonathon Klein 04/21/2014 at 23:34

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Integra Type-R main bearings.

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > Jonathon Klein 04/21/2014 at 23:42

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I think his rant could be summarized "Race on Sunday, sell on Monday". With nothing to sell (performance car), Honda looks lame. Sports cars are the Halo cars to a brand.

Are sports/performance cars niche products? Yes. But to say the market isn't there, I think the sub $40k FR-S, Camaro, Mustang, 370, Miata, Genesis, 128, WRX, Evo, would beg to differ.

Without a sporting vehicle the point of a racing department makes less and less business sense. To say Honda isn't huge is a joke.

Jonathon Klein > gmporschenut also a fan of hondas 04/22/2014 at 08:01

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Thank you I was searching for that saying in my head forever and couldn't remember it, but it's exactly how I feel!