The Honda Accord was the bestselling car in America last year, and since 1989, it has ranked no lower than second in the car-sales race. Moreover, Honda points out, if you ignore fleet sales, the Accord has been the best retail seller for all but one of those 13 years. The Accord has also won Car and Driver 10Best honors in 16 of the 20 years we have been conferring them. And last year we rated the current Accord, which was then four years old, better than the brand-new Nissan Altima and Toyota Camry.
With such a history of success, you couldn’t blame a car company for becoming complacent. But judging by this new seventh-generation Accord, which goes on sale this month as a 2003 model, Honda is in fact running scared.
For starters, these latest Accords have all-new sheetmetal across the board, with only headlights being shared between the two-door and four-door sedans. The design intent was to make the new Accord look more “muscular, vital, and agile.” Those might seem peculiar goals for a family sedan, but Honda planners see sedans evolving as personal-transportation devices, as SUVs and vans shoulder ever more of the family-hauler duties.
As a result, the new Accords have a pronounced wedge profile with what Honda describes as powerful rear haunches. The headlights are prominent and stylized, and the two-door’s rear light clusters are particularly interesting, with the wedgy look of the taillights of the Mercedes CL-class.
