Autoblog

Click above for high-res gallery of the 2008 Honda Accord Coupe

Honda's Accord has grown at every redo since the model's inception, and this latest version is no different. We've already tried out the sedan, so we borrowed the two-door version to sample the Coupé lifestyle, wherein you actually pronounce those acute accents. Our first impression is that the Accord Coupe is the best Monte Carlo never made, while retaining a fundamental core of Hondaness. Accords have always been half cool, half dorky, with the scale tipping one way or another depending on the generation. This latest one continues that trend, and we wanted to find out if the 2008 Accord Coupe is crushingly cool or heavily noisome.


All photos © 2008 Dan Roth / Weblogs, Inc.

click above image for 50 high-res pics of the 2008 Honda Accord Sedan

During the night, Honda opened the flood gates and officially unveiled the 2008 Honda Accord, the eighth generation of the automaker's perennial best-seller. There's too much new stuff to talk about, so we'll hit the highlights here and you can check out Honda's exhaustive press release after the jump.

The Accord for 2008 is available as a sedan, which has grown large enough to be classified a large car by the EPA, or a coupe. There are three basic engines available, including a 3.5L iVTEC V6 producing 273 horsepower and 250 ft-lbs. of torque. Do the math and you'll realize the '08 Accord with this engine is the most powerful Honda ever produced. It also features a new Variable Cylinder Management system when ordered in the sedan that can power the vehicle on three, four or all six cylinders to achieve an excellent 19/29 mpg. The other two mills are a 2.4L inline-four producing 200 horsepower/170 ft-lbs., and another 2.4L producing 180 horsepower/166 ft-lbs. All models of the '08 Accord can be ordered with a five-speed automatic, while four-cylinder models can also be had with a 5-speed manual transmission, and the V6 Coupe can be optioned with a six-speed manual.

Read on after the jump for more.

[Source: Honda]

Honda appears to be actively road testing on the upcoming Accord Coupe, and as these spy shots snapped by a poster on the Howard Forums show, the production car is going to be a near dead-ringer for the "concept" Honda teased us with at the Detroit Auto Show this past January. Obvious changes include a real-world lower rear fascia that features a pair of chrome exhaust tips, and the 10-spoke wheels seen above. The show car sported a set of integrated quad outlets that were obviously never going to make the transition to production. The dual outlets look perfectly good here.

If you click through to the forum to see the rest of the photos (all high-res), you'll notice that the front end, though taped, also apes the concept car. We're guessing that there's more detail to the bottom half of the front fascia than the Detroit car had (it was quite boring, actually). It's covered up in the photos, leading us to believe Honda's keeping something about it a secret. In any case, we like what we see, and if these cars are out and about, we're sure the pro photogs will be on the case as well in short order. let's see some interior shots!

You can compare the spy shots to the gallery of the Accord Coupe concept linked below.

[Source: Howard Forums vis The CarBlogger]