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By
EWAN KENNEDY
2 February 2009
Honda is celebrating 40 years in Australia with a special edition
of the award winning Accord Euro.
The special edition Euro
gains fog lights, rear parking sensors, Bluetooth, floor mats,
illuminated door sill garnishes, over the standard model. And
carries ‘40th Anniversary badging’ to let your neighbours know
your Honda is something out of the ordinary.
It’s priced at $31,440
plus on road costs. Honda Australia initially said that for the
month of January, customers will also receive free registration
and CTP insurance, a five-year warranty and free five-year 24-hour
Premium Roadside Assist. As we went to press, the company was
considering extending this beyond January, but hadn't yet come to
a definite decision. We suggest contacting your local Honda dealer
to see exactly what’s happening.
The special edition Accord
had been planned weeks in advance so its designers must have been
delighted when Accord Euro took out the 2008 Wheels Car of the
Year Award only a matter of hours before its public release.
This car of the year award
rounds out a neat pair of bookends for the Accord. The original
model, released here way back in 1977, also took out the Wheels
COTY honours, the first Japanese car to do so.
In an era when cars from
Japan were still sometimes being treated with suspicion by
Australian buyers the 1977 Wheels award was an interesting
milestone in Australian automotive history.
It may sound odd today,
but that 1977 Accord also set several other firsts in Australia:
the importers proudly boasted it featured air conditioning, a
digital clock, power steering, cloth seats, a tachometer,
intermittent wipers and an AM/FM radio as standard. Nowadays, you
couldn’t buy a car without these ‘extras’ even if you wanted
to.
The 40th Anniversary
Limited Edition Accord has a 2.4-litre four cylinder i-VTEC engine
which produces 133 kW and 222 Nm. A five-speed automatic
transmission is standard. The big four is an excellent unit with
excellent response and good torque at all but the lower reaches of
the rev band.
We have tested Accord
Euros extensively in Europe and Australia and have come away most
impressed by the supple suspension that has a real sporting feel
when you push the car hard. This car is certainly European in its
handling. Which is, of course, exactly what its designers
intended. Interior space is greater in the current Accord Euro
than the original one thanks to it being significantly wider.
Meaning Euro is now a contender in the family-car market.
The
Accord V6, not the Accord Euro which we are discussing here, was
recently named Drive's 2008 Car of the Year, and Large Car of the
Year.
© Copyright
Marque Publishing Company
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