If you own a Honda, you own a lawnmower. Apparently.

A red background means instant hate

Honda. They're famous for their motorcycles, robots, outboards, generators, aircraft, Formula 1 team, solar technology, hydrogen fuel cells and mountain bikes. Oh yeah, and their cars.

Honda are a very busy company, it seems. And when you look at some statistics that clever people put together, you'll see that they are the second-biggest Japanese car manufacturer and the eighth biggest... in the world. It's safe to assume that these guys know what they're doing.

Except if you listen to a lot of car guys, apparently Honda have no clue what they are doing. Hmm, this needs some exploring.


Poor Honda, they put so much work in their cars, only for them to be instantly disrespected by so many people. There must be a reason out there to explain why.

Muscle cars are extremely torquey

Firstly, you could point out that Honda VTEC engines (most famously found in their Type-R models) have no torque. This mostly comes from America, where they have beefy V8 muscle cars that ooze torque, and in a way you could quite easily say that have a valid point. The 2004 Civic Type-R has a wonderful naturally-aspirated 2.0L VTEC dream machine, but despite pumping about 200bhp, it only manages to generate about 155lb/ft of torque. If you keep the car in high revs (which is a sheer joy), then torque shouldn't be an issue, but in real life situations overtaking may become a chore.

Then many people claim that Honda VTEC sounds like a fart. I'll leave you to make your own judgement on that one...

But I think most of the hate is directed towards the twat who is driving their pride and joy. I can quite honestly agree that most Honda drivers (excluding OAP Jazz dilly-dalliers) have very little consideration towards others and do have quite a bad taste when it comes to modifying their cars.

This means that most Honda's are automatically called ricers. And if you read my previous article about ricers, you'll know that isn't a good thing at all.

My issue is that I really want to own a Honda when I am older; an S2000 to be precise. Back in its heyday, this car was often at the top spot for the driver satisfaction survey, and even today new sports cars are being compared against it. Oh, and it revs to 9000rpm. Nine-thousand.

Yes please.

But will I be able to take the hate? I think so, because I know I will be having more fun than almost anyone else when I decide to take a twisty back road.