an observation about european cars vs the rest of the

[Larry C Leung]

Tho I'm unlikely to own any Japanese car, I'd hesitate calling them less
than real. 

Honda's had a strong racing history since shortly after they started
building cars (and for quite a time when they were building bikes!) Heck,
they even entered F1 in 1964. I think that makes Honda a rather ballsy
company.

Nissan has a rather deep racing history, something that appears to be
lost over the last decade or so. First in SCCA, in particular, the 510s
and 240Z's back in the 70's in Trans Am support racing, and ultimately,
in the mid-80's in IMSA GTP racing, where they were the first to truely
successfully de-throne the mighty (and one of my all time faves) 962's in
series racing. 

Toyota probably has the weakest and shortest racing history, but they DID
take over Nissan's IMSA GTP's throne towards the late eighties, with the
help of Dan Gurney's All-American (?!) Racers. They also still maintain
the Toyota Atlantic Series. Too bad for Toyata (and me, I really miss
those cars (IMSA GTP, that is) the series died a fitful death, mismanaged
death. I unfortunately see a similar trend with CART, which I think
actually produces some of the best open wheel racing in the world, and
I'm an F1 fan!

LL - NY

On Tue, 4 Sep 2001 22:32:59 -0700 (PDT) Ti Kan <ti at amb.org> writes:
>Peter K. Wong writes:
>> Personally, I thought it was a silly risk on Acura's part to axe the 
>Legend
>> name and now the Integra follows suit.  These were both names with a 
>lot of
>> good attributes already attached, silly silly silly.
>
>I consider the whole thing rather humorous, how the marketeers of the
>Japanese car companies devote so much attention to this.  Consider 
>that
>Toyotas pretty much use names for their models (Echo, Tercel, 
>Corolla,
>Celica, Camry, Avalon, etc) whereas their upscale Lexus division use 
>the
>number and digits scheme (ES300, GS300/400, SC300/400, LS400, RX300, 
>etc).
>Same with Nissan, with Sentra, Altima, Maxima, etc., where as their 
>Infiniti
>has G20, I30, Q45, QX4, etc.  Honda has names, and while their Acura
>division used to have names but they have now totally switched to 
>numbers
>and digits too.
>
>Perhaps they are just trying to imitate their European competition, 
>namely
>Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Jaguar.  And imitators they are.  Their very 
>"brand names" were conjured up by marketeers, unlike the European 
>makes
>whose names have a real company behind it, actually mean something, 
>and
>has a rich heritage associated.
>
>-Ti
>01 S4 2.7 biturbo quattro
>84 5000S 2.1 turbo
>80 4000 2.0
>-- 
>    ///  Ti Kan                Vorsprung durch Technik
>   ///   AMB Research Laboratories, Sunnyvale, CA. USA
>  ///    ti at amb.org
> //////  http://www.amb.org/ti/
>///
>