Outsider's Perspective: It rolls downhill

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The Honda Accord, alongside the Mercedes-Benz E350 and the Toyota Avalon, is one of the most sensible 4-door sedans that you can buy today. And it has just gotten a lot better, with a mid-life upgrade that promises to improve what is already a very nice car.
Unfortunately these improvements come with a heavy price to those with the gift of eyesight.

Yes, thanks to the magic of trickle-down features, things that you’d previously only find in an Acura TL can now be found here in the decidedly not-aspirational Accord. Sadly, those elements include a Hondized version of Acura’s beak. Everything else is nice, it’ll be the first vehicle in Honda’s lineup to have both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Those of you who have Windows phone…pray. The future also promises a tiny 1.5-liter turbo that seems like not enough engine to move a car this size, but I’m sure if anyone can pull it off it’ll be Honda. For the moment you still have the 2.4-liter four and the sweet 3.5-liter V6. But all of this is inconsequent, because of that unfortunate chrome growth up front.
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Dave Marek, the guy who decided that the beak called “Power Plenum” in marketing speak was a good look back in 2009 when it was grafted on the TL, clearly thought it was the future. He wasn’t completely wrong, but to say his first attempt at it was unfortunate would be like saying the Internet’s reaction over that Lion-killing dentist was of mild annoyance. Later revisions have made it more aesthetically pleasing and car design has evolved to a point where they don’t seem as gaudy anymore. I’m not sure if this means Mr. Marek was a visionary like Bangle (Shut up, he predicted current design trends with scary accuracy) or if car design has gotten so unfortunate (See: Bangle) that the beak has become a very tame quirk in comparison. But it simply doesn’t look good on the Accord.
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To see why that’s the case, you only have to look at two cars. The first one is the current Accord. Yes, it’s inoffensive. No, it won’t make the teenager who steals it from their parents any more attractive or appealing to their peers. It’s a perfectly conventional mid-size people with just the right balance of money and sense.
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The other is the 2016 Acura RLX. Yes, it does look like someone took a picture of a 7-series and one of an Accord and blurred them together, but it had one crucial difference, it was designed with the beak in mind. It even carries it in its native Japan where it’s sold as the Honda Legend.
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The current Honda Accord was not designed with the beak in mind, it was designed for a conservative front-end treatment with an unobtrusive grille. This new treatment looks like someone just decided to badly graft an Acura front end to their Accord in the hopes that it’d make it look more upmarket. This effect is not helped at all by the design of the headlights themselves. The size is right, the technology is right, the fact that the LED’s are visibly separated in such a way that they make the Bug-Eye treatment given to the Alfa Romeo 4C look good in comparison is not right.Perhaps a smoked effect would go a long way fixing that.
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Quite frankly, it doesn’t matter, out of the last ten years of Accord production, nine of them have seen sales numbers north of a quarter of a million units and eight of those more than 300,000 Accords have found new owners. This even when competing against the ever-growing tall wagon market, which is being led by its baby CR-V sibling. A nose-job and some extra features will hardly make a dent on those numbers. In fact the only way I could see the Accord falling from grace is if they cost cut it like the 2012 Civic. And that lesson is far too fresh in Honda’s collective mind to do that.

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  1. Rover 1 Avatar
    Rover 1

    Dave Marek really needs to keep his designers off those drugs and away from the ‘Transformers’ videos. And maybe have a chat to Peter Schreyer about surfacing?

  2. salguod Avatar

    Actually, the first Acura beak was on the 2007 MDX and it was a much nicer look with fine detailing and an open cross bar that broke up the mass of the shape. They unfortunately went to the big slab of (fake) metal immediately after.
    http://photo.netcarshow.com/Acura-MDX_2007_photo_51.jpg

  3. WinstonSmith84 Avatar
    WinstonSmith84

    I’m far more upset about the prospect of turbocharged engines than I am about the facelift. Choice is dying.

  4. Tiberiuswise Avatar

    With regard to the 1.5 liter engine. I’ve got about 5,000 miles on a Fusion with the 1.5 EcoBoost. I find it perfectly adequate. It gets up to 37 MPG on the highway with a total average of 32 including plenty of NYC stop and go.

  5. Stephen Avatar
    Stephen

    Yeah, Acura and Honda styling have really gone down an abstract road. I get that automotive styling has to stay fresh and cutting edge from year to year, but there’s a practical limit to how cutting edge you can get away with. Maybe that why I notice fewer new Acuras on the road (except the MDX, they’re everywhere). It’s sad because I feel like the Japanese, and Honda especially, had a solid 3 decades of really handsome and balanced styling across their model ranges. Now things are just getting whacky.