The future of Honda performance models in Australia

At a media discussion in Melbourne today, Honda Australia managing director Stephen Collins spoke with MOTOR about the future of performance and sports models in Australia.

With excitement about the Honda Civic Type R high both internally and with Honda’s customers, the Australian arm of the brand says it’s almost sold out of its entire allocation of cars until the next boat arrives.

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“Performance is a part of Honda’s DNA, and it has been since Mr Honda started the company,” Collins said.

“So for us it’s really important, and it’s why we were so keen to bring this generation’s Type-R to the market – and NSX.

“Down the track, if there are opportunities for us to bring sportier or performance models to this market, we will.”

Though Honda has other models overseas which are unavailable in Australia, such as the Kei-Car Honda S660 due to ADRs, the Civic Type-R and NSX are the main two ingredients in Honda’s global performance range.

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“I think right now those two models are really doing the job for us in terms of the technology, and probably more importantly just their ‘fun-to-drive’ aspect.

“If a global model comes up that we can put our hand up for, we’ll definitely do that.”

Given the low number of NSXs – just six –sold in Australia since its introduction in 2016, Honda seems quite content with that performance, stating it’s not a car for chasing sales volume.

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Collins says it’s unclear if any more are on the way to Australia in the near future.

“I’m not aware that we have any more orders on the go, but if we do get a customer order then we would certainly talk to Honda America to get a production slot as early as we possibly could.”

As well as the six NSXs sold, Honda possesses an additional NSX for media and customer tests. The NSX retails for $420,000 in Australia before on-roads.