Thursday, January 8, 2009
Honda Cancels All Sportscars Development Projects - including S2000 Successor
Honda has put an end to the next generation Honda S2000 in a restructuring plan meant to flex the company's green muscle while bringing them back to basics. A halt to the S2000 will no doubt leave many fans of the roadster disappointed.
Honda CEO Takeo Fukui has made company objectives clear: 500,000 hybrids built by 2012, including the Honda Insight and the 80mpg Honda Jazz. It is too bad they could not figure out a way to keep the Honda S2000 in the fold. Hopefully, they will take another look at the project when the economy recovers.
The plan was first announced in an end-of-the-year speech by Honda CEO Takeo Fukui. In that speech, he directly addressed the need to cut projects like the Honda NSX (Acura NSX, in America), as the need to be sustainable outweighed the demand for sports cars. The new direction was a result of the rapidly declining economy, and sudden -yet massive- fluctuations in oil pricing. Fukui believes products that larger audiences want, and are capable of paying for, will insulate the company from any more exposure to a global economic crisis.
more detail. ...
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