Actual photos of new 3rd Gen Honda Fit/Jazz !

The India Auto Blog website once again scooped the rest of the world by putting up leaked photos of what is believed to be the upcoming new 3rd generation JDM Honda Fit (Jazz). The photos were clearly taken using a handphone off an internal Honda brochure or similar document as  watermarks with the statement  "prohibited to show outside the company" were printed over all the images. This lends

'Scoop' info on new 3rd Generation Honda Fit/Jazz

Japan's Best Car magazine has published 'super scoop' info on the new 3rd generation Honda Fit/Jazz which is widely expected to debut this year around the Tokyo Motor Show time frame. 



According to one credible person with Honda 'connections', scoop info such as these but coming at so late a time are likely to be quite accurate.






According to Best Car issue for 'June 26', the

New JDM Honda Accord Hybrid rumours

Magazines in Japan are currently going a bit crazy with rumours and supposed 'scoop info' on new models to be launched in Japan in the near future, including new Honda models. One of the Honda models in focus is the new Accord, in the form of a 'proper' Accord Hybrid rather than the full electric plug in. TOV/TOVA contributor DanielGr put up a scan of japanese magazine Holiday Auto's article

News of Brio-based MPV shared by Indian car blog

Mr Shrawan Raja, managing editor of http;//indianautosblog.com wrote to our Jeff Palmer to share some interesting news of a future Honda Brio-based MPV that will be launched for the Asian market. Mr Shrawan wrote ;


I'm writing to inform you that Honda is working on an MPV for the emerging market based on the Brio platform. As you may know, the Brio is a car smaller than the Jazz for Asian

Honda to Participate in the FIA Formula One World Championship with McLaren

The news is official. They are rumors no more. It is real. I am very excited.



Recalling TV footages I watched as a 8-year-old, the white and red McLaren Honda MP4/4 winning 15 out of 16 Grand Prix. That feeling was, well, simply exhilarating! That sound of the 1.5 V6 turbo was, intoxicating to say the least. The association of that successes with the Senna-developed NSX, the DOHC VTEC

New 4G CR-V First Drive Impressions

Our new 4G CR-V 'First Drive' impressions article from the Honda Malaysia media drive event is now up in TOVA. Please go to http://asia.vtec.net/Reviews/4GCRVFirst/index.html#.UZMjEkoYQs4 to read the article. Feel free to give us your feedback and thoughts here.

Summary of Results for Castrol Honda World Touring Car Team

Castrol Honda WTCC Civic



On March 20, 2013, Honda announced that Castrol, the  high-performance lubricant brand, would be the title sponsor of its factory team in the 2013 FIA World Touring Car Championship. 








Along with the sponsorship deal, the team adopted a new name - Castrol Honda World Touring Car Team – as well as an exciting green, white and red livery for the Civic WTCC.

Honda CR-V 2.4

In the CR-V media drive event, Honda Malaysia confirms that the 4G CR-V 2.4 is on-time for a June launch this year. It is packaged as an upmarket, luxury oriented CR-V and also targeted at those who wants more performance from the CR-V which the current 2.0l version is unable to deliver. Expect full leather interior with hopefully more control over the powerplant to better make use of its

9G Accord for next quarter launch

Malaysian Honda fans who are waiting for the new 9Gen Honda Accord, it looks like you have to wait a little bit longer as it will not be launched this quarter. It will be a Honda however, and is highly unlikely to be carrying a different badge.

Honda Unveils Civic Tourer Concept at Geneva Motor Show

Honda unveiled the concept of the new Civic Tourer model at the Geneva Motor Show on 5 March, 2013. The concept exemplifies the design themes that Honda has adopted for the current generation of the European Civic. 



The Tourer is slated to be introduced in early 2014. The production version could be seen as early as September at Frankfurt. While we are not expecting the Tourer to

Sales in the Japanese Market for February 2013

Source: world.honda.com




Honda is on track to regain the best seller in the mini-vehicle category. 

N BOX was the top selling car in Japan in the mini-vehicle category for the month of February 2013 with sales of 22,354 units. The N BOX was the number two best seller for the year of 2012. For February, the N-ONE was the sixth best-selling car with sales of 10,981 units. 





Meanwhile,

3G Fit/Jazz Hybrid info

Someone with 'connections' posted this in our TOV forums about the new 3rd generation Fit (Jazz) that is due to be launched this year, probably at the Tokyo Motor Show or just before. 




The new Fit hybrid will only come with the 1.5L
engine(last Fit Hybrid came with 1.3L or 1.5L) and in Japan it will be
cheaper than this gen 1.5L Fit hybrid, starting around 1.6 mil yen

Production will

A holiday in Japan...

Things have been quiet here on 'Honda Fan', and for a good reason. I was away for a trip to Japan and only returned late last week. My last trip to Japan was almost exactly 10 years ago, when I went for a part business, part leisure trip partially paid for by VTEC.NET and partially out of my own pocket. That was to cover the 2003 Tokyo Motor Show but I also took the opportunity to visit a friend

Honda to Build New 2014 Accord Hybrid in U.S.

Honda to Build New 2014 Accord Hybrid in U.S. 








On 10 January 2013, Honda announced that the new two-motor Accord Hybrid Sedan, scheduled to go on sale nationwide this fall, will be manufactured at its Marysville, Ohio auto plant.


This will be the third hybrid model built by Honda in America and the first in Ohio. Honda Manufacturing of Indiana, LLC in Greensburg, Ind. was the first

Coverage of CR-Z's MMC up at TOVA

For those who follows this blog closely and might not be aware, our coverage of the CR-Z's MMC is now up at TOVA. The link is http://asia.vtec.net/Reviews/1GCRZMMC/mmc.html#.UUfNXDd1NLE. This is our standard type of coverage for model launch now - product and technical coverage.



If you have a need to comment (some of the contents in our coverage nowadays can be contentious), feel free to do

Honda Malaysia launches new 4G CR-V

Honda Malaysia Press Release for the new 4G CR-V which will be launched tomorrow.



Honda Malaysia announced that the
All-New Honda CR-V will be arriving on Malaysian shores in early March this
year. The completely redesigned from front to back, 4th Generation Comfortable Runabout Vehicle represents a high grade appearance with its
bold and premium design, class-leading spaciousness,

New CR-V to be launched in Malaysia this week

The next generation '4G' CR-V is coming to ASEAN. Finally. Delayed by the floods in Thailand, Honda has now recovered fully and is speeding up the introduction of models that have been affected. Therefore after this CR-V, expect the new 9G Accord to come very soon as well. As the 4G CR-V has already been launched in the U.S., Japan, and most other parts of the world for months already, more or

The question of the 'Hot' CR-Z : the official Honda answer

The 'new' CR-Z, actually the mid-term MMC for the CR-Z was officially launched in Malaysia on February 21st last week. This is actually very fast as the MMC was launched in Japan barely a few months away. When the CR-Z was first launched here, I asked a question to Norio Tomobe-san, the LPL for the CR-Z which it seems was quite widely circulated. I asked him about the rumours of the 'hot' CR-Z

'New' CR-Z coming to Malaysia this month

For Malaysian enthusiasts who might have been waiting eagerly, the 'new' (i.e. MMC) CR-Z will be launched here in Malaysia this month itself, the 21st, in fact right after the 'Chinese New Year' week (i.e. next week), less than 2 weeks away. 



My understanding is we will be getting the JDM-spec version, with the 'new' 136ps engine and not the lame one used in the 'new' USDM CR-Z. Following

Another answer to the Honda Proton collaboration

This video is taken from the same press conference and is of Honda Malaysia's new COO Mr Roslan bin Abdullah answering the same question as Yoichiro Ueno-san - about the Honda-Proton collaboration. The answer is a bit more intelligible this time but the PA system volume was quite low so you need to turn up the volume on your computer speakers in order to hear what Mr Roslan was saying (

Honda Malaysia CEO's official answer to the Honda Proton collaboration

The by now infamous announcement about the Honda-Proton collaboration continues to be of interest to many Honda fans with many questions still unanswered. To date, other than the original press release, neither party has made any further clarifications. As Proton is a Malaysian car manufacturer, naturally we are expected to be in a position to find out most about the details of this

HONDA CITY TOPS ASEAN NCAP SAFETY RATINGS

Honda City was rated 5 Stars in Adult Occupant Protection and achieved the highest rating in Child Occupant Protection among 8 vehicles tested.




Honda Malaysia today announced that the Honda City model, has achieved 5 Stars in Adult Occupant Protection and the highest safety ratings in Child Occupant Protection in the ASEAN New Car Assessment Programme (ASEAN NCAP) crash test.

The results

TIME TO FREED! HONDA MALAYSIA DEBUTS THE NEW FREED IN MALAYSIA.

Honda Malaysia Sdn Bhd today introduced the New Freed in Malaysia. This Best Urban MPV adopts Honda’s innovative technology that offers spaciousness, stylish design, advanced features and quality. The New Freed enhances both driver’s and passengers’ comfort with its practicality, improved features, interior and exterior design. These transformations make the improved version of Freed an even

TOV talks to Erik Berkman on the new NSX

For
readers who are not members or a regular at our forums, TOV principal
Jeff Palmer met up briefly with Erik Berkman, one of the lead designers
of the new 2G NSX during the recent NAIAS. As the conversation was informal, Jeff did not put it in a formal article but shared it in our forums. Extracted and quoted below are Jeff's quick
summary of his conversation with Berkman.



Basically

Civic loses best seller status in the U.S.

One victory but also one defeat. 



In the U.S., the Honda Civic has dissappointly lost its best seller status to the Toyota Prius for last year (2012), totalling 57,124 units sold compared to 60,688 units sold for the Prius. This despite an early MMC to address the concerns from media and long time Honda fans. While many and even Honda themselves have been harping on the original 9G (i.e. pre

Honda regains No2 spot for total sales in the Japanese domestic market

After a 10 years wait, Honda finally regained its No.2 spot in the sales chart for the JDM (japanese domestic market), an achievement last made in 2002. While once again playing 2nd fiddle to mighty Toyota, Honda's total sales for 2012 is close to 50% that of Toyota, coming in at almost 750k versus Toyota's 1.65 million. Coming in close at Honda's heels is the unexpected pair of Daihatsu

New Honda model - 'Urban SUV'

On
display at the concluding NAIAS is Honda's latest new model, an SUV based on
the popular Honda Fit/Jazz. Done as a global model, meaning to be sold
in all countries in the world, Honda is finally and wisely capitalizing
on the hugely popular Fit/Jazz platform. 



A SUV smaller than the
CR-V but available worldwide is sorely needed by Honda and this new
model meets that need. The car

Honda Gear Concept

While all attention and lots of excitement have been focussed on the updated 2G NSX Concept in the NAIAS, Honda quietly slipped in a new concept car, the Honda Gear in the Montreal Motor Show which was running concurrently with the NAIAS.To many long-time Honda fans, this Honda Gear is no less as exciting as the updated NSX Concept and in some ways even better as it promises something all

New NSX Concept at the 2013 NAIAS

Currently, all our attention are focussed on the NAIAS, the North American International Motor Show where three significant cars are on display from Honda and Acura. These are first and foremost the much anticipated updated new NSX concept car, this time with a full concept interior as told to us by our resident insider. Honda/Acura also put up the prototype of the new Acura MDX for the show.

Spy photo of new Honda Stream

 




It is in chinese but one can probably make it fairly readable by using something like Google translation. The chinese website 'sohu' has put up a photo of what seems to be a Honda Stream in the standard disguise colour scheme. The photo in question is above. The sohu page in question is http://auto.sohu.com/20130111/n363067470.shtml.

Update new NSX Concept for Detroit Motor Show ?

There are lots of talk about Honda (via Acura) putting out an updated version of the new NSX concept on this coming Detroit (2013) Motor Show. Claims are that the updates includes the interior as well. The photo above was put up by a TOV forumer in our TOV forums but is probably taken from another website. 

Our resident ex-Honda 'insider' told us that Honda/Acura wanted early feedback from '

Zengő Motorsport Selects Honda’s Civic for WTCC

The Hungarian-based private team Zengő Motorsport
confirmed today that they will enter the next two seasons of the FIA World
Touring Car Championship (WTCC) with the Honda Civic WTCC. The car will be
driven by Hungarian driver Norbert Michelisz.

William De Braekeleer,
Motorsport Manager Honda Motor Europe Ltd., said of the announcement:





“We have always been committed to making the

Honda Malaysia (Sales and Marketing) moved office

Honda Malaysia's sales and marketing division has shifted from their old office to CP Tower along the Sprint Highway.