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Crash Landing: 2009 Honda Pilot design deemed boring
click above to view more high-res pics of the Honda Pilot Prototype
We were there when Honda trotted out its Pilot Prototype in Detroit, and our snoozy first impression is apparently what the public at large is feeling, too. Sales of the current Pilot have dropped off by nearly 25 percent, so Honda's feeling the pressure with this redesign. It doesn't bode well, then, that the Pilot's new duds leave the buying public unmoved. CNW Research polled several hundred drivers from LA, Chicago and Detroit, and many respondents found the 2009 Pilot a yawn to behold. Nothing about the newly-squared off exterior struck a chord, which is unusual for a new design. Usually, something distinctive garners attention, but the exterior design only earned a 7.5 point score on CNW's 12-point scale, off at least a point and a half from what most new vehicles do. We found the Pilot's freshening a little boring, but mainly the headlights leave us very unnerved, like trying to stare down a bird of prey.
[Source: Inside Line]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
icu812ru469 8:30AM (1/29/2008)
Honda boardroom in 2006:
Chairman - Okay designers, our sales are dropping and design has been hohum and boring. What do we do with the square design?
Designers - Uh, let's make it even more square and boring?
Chairman - DO IT !!!!
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TwinTurbo3000GT 9:10AM (1/29/2008)
the squareness isnt the problem. There are plenty of cars out today that prove that. The problem is all the little details and such. it has no stand out features, no defining characteristics. It may be brand new, but it looks 10 years old already.
Menice 8:38AM (1/29/2008)
not a fan but it's not that bad. the front has some style the rest is typical honda.. conservative, non threatening, they are the 'hi i'm sensable and practical' cars
thats kind of who honda is.. at least my impressions.
i think that poll would have worked if you subbed in almost any honda member of the fleet. even the accord's kind of flashy, but i could also see some people calling it boring.
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geo.stewart 8:38AM (1/29/2008)
Honda boredroom...
its not enough of a change to call it evolutionary. other than stealing the back hatch design from the pathfinder (the little dents at the taillights) and coming up with a bizarro front end, there is nothing here to note.
what a waste of energy
If that is truly the new interior, then that's sweet but I'm guessing that center console is just showroom.
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geo.stewart 8:39AM (1/29/2008)
its not that its bad, its that it doesnt inspire any kind of reaction from the crowd. For what is supposed to be a refresh, its not really.
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john riley 8:46AM (1/29/2008)
The Honda CR-V has the ugliest nose on the planet, but it does not seem to have hurt sales. I think buyers of this thing will be conservative and will not mind conservative styling.
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john riley 8:50AM (1/29/2008)
OTOH points made elsewhere about Honda not having a more car-like crossover like the Edge and upcoming Toyota Venza are well taken.
Tim 8:47AM (1/29/2008)
The thing that always makes me laugh is how automakers like to show these "prototypes" of upcoming vehicles, when anyone that has any knowledge of cars can see that there's nothing prototypical about them, other than some funky headlights or wild interior colors. You can see it in the details. The level of finish of the trim, or the fact that the door inners are stamped rather than hand formed. You don't make tooling to produce sheetmetal unless the design is released for production.
The thing that has Honda worried is that the Pilot they showed is not some styling exercise, that is the production car. I'm sure the headlights will change a bit, and the seats won't be covered in contrasting leather, this is Honda after all, but most of what you see is what will be rolling off of the assembly line in the near future.
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John R 8:47AM (1/29/2008)
From that front facia alone I can think of a lot of adjectives, but boring wouldn't be one of them...
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Jared 9:27AM (1/29/2008)
I agree. I call it freakin' ugly. Then there's the interior with the transmission lever sticking out of the dash, amidst a sea of beige plastic. It's even uglier than the new Accord, and that takes some doing.
djhamel2 8:50AM (1/29/2008)
Yeah, the exterior is a snoozefest, but I like the interior quite a bit. I do hope they keep the blue leather seats for production...it's nice to have a choice other than black or tan, and that shade offsets well with the rest of the interior.
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Mike Homeniuk 4:28PM (1/29/2008)
The sketch they released previously actually looked quite good, but talk about 'lost in translation'! Save for the 'clown' face, which is pretty repugnant, the rest is even more boring than the new Forester, and that's saying something.
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G-Money 8:53PM (1/29/2008)
While I agree that the new Forester's styling isn't very exciting, it's still much nicer looking than this thing. This looks like a cross between a Dodge Nitro a vehicle from the movie Tron.
Mike Homeniuk 4:22PM (2/07/2008)
I guess I was comparing the 'boringness' of the 2 models.
While boring, the new Forester sure doesn't have the 'repugnant' face of the Pilot.
mctwist16 9:12AM (1/29/2008)
She blinds everybody with her super high beams,
She's a squirrel crushing, deer smacking, driving machine!
Canyonero!-oh woah, Canyonero!
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psarhjinian 9:32AM (1/29/2008)
I wouldn't have said boring--at least no more boring than anything else in this segment--but I would say "ugly detailing". But this is Honda: everything after the 7G Civic has been an exercise in "make the perfect car, then whack it with the weird stick".
The problem with the Pilot is the same one that a lot of the 7-Seat SUV/Crossovers are going to run into: the market for cars like these are going to go away as gas prices go up and the SUV fad dies down. It's very hard for a supposedly practical consumer to walk into a Honda showroom and pick the cramped, yet thirstier Pilot over the Oddyssey.
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71cuda 9:39AM (1/29/2008)
You'd think that, but there are a bunch of people who will not, no way, buy a minivan, ever.
Moe 9:52AM (1/29/2008)
I don't thin it's that bad tbh. It has a hint of Escalade at the back, which certainly isn't a bad thing. It's just that front-end that's absolutely hideous. I'm guessing Honda's thinking here is that people who want something a bit more stylish will either step-up to one of the Acura branded SUVs, or down to the CRV (which really is rather impressive looking IMO).
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Rick 11:05AM (1/29/2008)
What's sad, is the drawing they released a few weeks back as a teaser to the unvieling looked very nice. Somehow, they didn't follow the design enough, or someone drew a better Pilot.
This looks like a joint venture with the Ford Escape. Where did all the Civic and, to some extent, the new Accord curves go? Cars are curvy and trucks/SUVs are square?
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psarhjinian 11:33AM (1/29/2008)
The Accord is sleek? Shwaa?
The current incarnation's styling is essentially "Ridgeline Sedan."