At Honda’s recent shareholders’ meeting in Tokyo, a middle-aged man stood up during the Q&A session and asked whether the company was going to reinterpret a small, sporty car like the Beat for the 21st century. “While I am still young enough to enjoy sports driving, I’d like to drive something compact and sporty, something like an updated Beat. What are the chances of that?” he said poignantly.
Honda CEO Takanobu Ito took the microphone and replied without hesitation. “We are currently developing a successor to the Beat, a car that anyone can easily have fun with. Expect to see it in showrooms within the next few years.” The comment dominated the headlines the next day. Strangely, Ito’s subsequent utterance didn’t get nearly as much play, but potentially was much more significant to those pining away for a road-going Honda supercar: “In addition to the Beat successor, we are also making significant progress with plans for an exotic sports car.”
Just six months ago, Ito told a media gathering that Honda felt compelled to re-launch a high-performance sports car like the NSX, but he didn’t go so far as to say it was definitely happening. But it was the first time Ito had actually uttered the telling phrase “making significant progress with plans to…” build a successor.
