Honda’s stylish new Accord grows in stature

Dan Carney • E-mail

The Honda Accord is a mirror reflecting not only the desires of American consumers but those consumers themselves, as the car has grown from its compact origins into an EPA-classified large car in its latest iteration.

Just as American homes have grown larger and Americans themselves have grown larger, so it goes with Honda’s “big” car, the Accord.

It started life in 1976 as a humble 2,020-pound, 162.8-inch-long subcompact hatchback powered by a 68 horsepower 1.6-liter engine. Today’s 2008 model includes an optional V-6-power plant, tips the scales at 3,577 pounds and stretches 194.3 inches from bumper to bumper.

With 120 cubic feet of interior volume, the car has crossed threshold into the “large” car group, along with such grandfatherly models as the Ford Crown Victoria and Buick Lucerne. Perhaps sthat should come as little surprise since the car’s customers have aged a year every year over the past decade, and the average Accord owner is now 50, according to the company.

The new Accord offers an array of engine options, a strategy more common to domestic carmakers than the company whose slogan once was, “We make it simple.”

The base engine is a 2.4-liter, four-cylinder rated at 180 horsepower, and the same engine in a higher state of tune produces 190 horsepower in more luxurious models. That’s 47.5 horses from each cylinder, compared to 68 horsepower for the original model’s whole engine.

Most V-6 versions of the Accord come with Honda’s variable cylinder management technology, which allows the engine to save fuel by running on three, four or six cylinders depending on conditions. This is a change from earlier versions of VCM, which only switched between three and six cylinders.

The new design permits cylinder deactivation in a wider range of driving circumstances, which helps boost gas mileage. However, the sporty V-6-powered two-door coupe model, when equipped with the six-speed manual transmission, does not include VCM technology, forgoing the feature to ensure maximum power at low revs and partial throttle.

While the once-petite Accord is slipping into a plus-sized outfit, its new dress is unquestionably more stylish than the dowdy frock that adorned the outgoing model.

Honda Attractively styled components, but disappointingly hard plastics.

The old Accord, introduced as a 2003 model, was such a styling disappointment that the company rushed through a midlife restyle in 2006 (unprecedented for Honda, although plenty of others have made similar missteps).

With the new Accord, rather than assuming that mainstream sedan buyers don’t care about styling, the company emphasized eye-catching looks from the start. But an obstacle arose in the drive to make the new Accord look better: European pedestrian protection standards.

In a bid to reduce pedestrian fatalities in Europe’s crowded streets, cars sold there are now required to lessen the impact on human bodies in the event of a road collision. In practice this has meant raised hoods that provide empty crush space above the engine to help cushion a victim’s head, protecting it from hitting the rigid engine.

The requirement has produced some homely new cars. Honda designers seem to have worked overtime to make the rest of the car as sleek and racy as possible. At the front, stylists opted for a tall, unapologetically blunt grille. The goal was to evoke images of strength and power, explained chief engineer Chitoshi Yokota, to make customers feel safe and secure in the Accord.

When seen in marketing brochures the two halves work well together. However, in person I found that, especially with the streamlined coupe, the whole section forward of the windshield looks “added on,” like one of the disguises manufacturers wrap around test prototypes as camouflage. If only we could pull that covering off to reveal the low, swoopy nose to match the rest of the car, I imagined.

But such low front ends aren’t possible for cars meant to be sold the world over. And to its credit, the Accord is not only better-looking that its predecessor, it’s also more distinctive than the smart new Nissan Altima. The Altima has similar lines and deals with the same challenges, but the result is a little more generic-looking than the Accord.

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