Jared has spent 15 years covering the auto industry, getting his first break with autoX—one of Asia’s biggest auto magazines. Since 2010, he has reviewed hundreds of cars and motorbikes around the world, worked with Top Gear, Autocar, Evo, Motoring World, and Quattroruote, served on the IMOTY jury for five years, and is a founding member of the Automotive Journalist Association of India (AJAI).
Things are heating up at the Tokyo Auto Salon as Honda has just made an announcement of two new product lines for its future models. The two new lines are the Sport Line and the Trail Line, with several new concepts currently on display. Riding on its Honda Sports DNA, Honda says it’s about to crank up the fun, and is rolling out more genuinely exciting performance models for both road and off-road models.
What will be most interesting to performance car enthusiasts, though, is that the Japanese brand’s motorsports arm, Honda Racing Corporation, has lent its name and technologies to two new street performance-flavored concepts – a Civic Type R HRC Concept and a Prelude HRC Concept.
Toyota fooled us all in the best way imaginable.
Following in the same footsteps as the Acura Integra Type S HRC Prototype, Honda has showcased a custom Civic and Prelude concept that feature these new HRC performance parts. These new concepts embody the brand’s new plan for “Honda passion for driving performance”.
This will be particularly interesting for customers who want to tune or customize their Honda vehicles because it will potentially create an HRC parts ecosystem. It will allow owners to upgrade in stages (brakes, suspension, aero, bracing) without rolling the dice on risky and questionable aftermarket components.
Based on the Civic Type R, this concept sees HRC take the performance car to the next level. However, the car was shown heavily wrapped and camouflaged, which makes us think that Honda is still being very careful about what it reveals. Honda has claimed that this concept is currently under development and will offer a more enjoyable driving experience influenced by the racetrack.
The Prelude might not be making the best headlines right now because of its current sales figures and markups, but it’s still getting attention in the media, and it is currently one of Honda’s most important sports car offerings. This new concept takes the new Prelude and fits it with new HRC performance parts. These parts are being built exclusively for the Prelude to make it sharper, faster, and more alive behind the wheel.
We still don’t have verified numbers for power or curb weight changes on the Prelude HRC concept, but the visual message makes it clear that Honda wants you to associate the Prelude’s comeback with real performance culture.
The Honda booth was also packed with extra eye-candy. Alongside the Civic Type R HRC Concept and Prelude HRC Concept, Honda showed the Civic e:HEV RS Prototype, which is a sportier hybrid grade that’s set to use S+ Shift. The Japanese carmaker also showcased the Super-ONE Prototype. This compact EV features a Boost Mode, simulated shifting and sound tricks). There was also the N-ONE RS Racing Mate Concept for a hit of retro aftermarket flavor, plus reference crowd-pleasers like the Passport TrailSport Elite, Acura Integra Type S, and even the NSX Restoration Prototype.
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