The Honda Accord debuted fifty years ago this month. To celebrate, Honda has put up a special exhibit at the Honda Collection Hall in Japan. The display features a timeline of all eleven generations, as well as a fourth-gen wagon and a seventh-gen (known stateside as the Acura TSX) Euro R. Naturally, there’s also merch.
For a car that’s as influential as the Accord, it’s a bit surprising that Honda isn’t making a bigger deal out of this milestone. For many, the Accord is the car that made the marque, shifting brand perception away from econoboxes and into a quality mainstream sedan that eventually became America’s best-selling car.
The small exhibit at the museum features just the two cars, and the merch is focused on the first-generation, depicting the original CVCC hatchback on a T-shirt, cap, and mug. An additional keychain and money holder are made from the upholstery of recycled Accord seats by Cotocul, a Kyoto leather specialty shop.
Honda has built over 25 million Accords and sold them in more than 160 countries, and it has won Japan Car of the Year three times (for the third, fifth, and seventh generations). Honda will release a 50th anniversary video about the Accord at the end of May. If you happen to be in Tochigi Prefcture, the exhibit runs until June 30.
Either they feel that the Accord is on its way out, so they will not celebrate to hard for a car that will not be renewed in a year or two, or they have somethine bigger to celebrate and can only afford this much museum space…
But either way, yeah, 50 years is a big career to celebrate and they could only be bothered to bring two cars out, and of those not even the first and the last one?
That said, look at this wagon, dang I miss these cars.
My mother had a 1980 metallic blue hatchback. It was a bit curious in that the only prominent badge on the front wasn’t “HONDA” but “CVCC”. I think it had bad valve seals or something because it developed a smoky start.