Honda hit the wrong formula
By John Dickinson on 8th Mar 07
Japanese giant hits a bum note with its Earth Car F1 nonsense - watch Button literally fly...
HONDA is one of the biggest, most respected, most technologically advanced companies in the world - look how they wowed us with Asimo, the amazing humanoid robot. It is a company that even its Japanese rivals pay homage to. They believe that if Honda sneezes they will all catch a cold and where Honda leads the rest follow.
So given Honda's incredible potential worldwide influence what on earth (no pun intended) are they playing at with that bizarre Formula 1 Earth Car nonsense?
For anyone who doesn't know, Honda has dispensed with sponsors' logos on its F1 cars and adorned them instead with a huge picture of the earth. It is supposed to show that Honda cares about the environment.
I have news for whoever thought that one up - it doesn't work!
Has Honda come up with a super new, environmentally perfect concept that allows them to compete in F1 with zero pollution? No. Their cars still guzzle gas, rubber and plain old cash on the same heroic scale as all the other fantasymobiles on the grid. Their part in the F1 circus is exactly as before with a fleet of environmentally unfriendly trucks, vans, cars, helicopters, planes, etc, etc that makes a total joke of any soft-focus environmental claims.
They have made the fatal mistake of believing their own hype and talking down to the proles. The Smartalec PR blue-sky think-tank that came up with that one really does live a long way from reality if they thinks that Joe Bloggs can't see through all the transparent hogwash.
But it was Honda's highly paid steersman, Jenson Button, who really put the top hat on this one. The boy Button claimed that he's a good lad who always turns his TV off and doesn't just flick it on standby. This from a man who burns fossil fuel by the ton all by himself in his very own private jet. Or failing that his monster boat! Spectacular own goal chaps and the newspaper columnists and sports writers have had a field day. All Honda has achieved is is to draw media attention to the overblown, over-hyped, surreal world of F1 which the public is slowly becoming distinctly disenchanted with - especially from an environmental viewpoint.
One final point, if I have interpreted this all wrong then the PR guys have failed even more miserably.
Anyway, judging by the conversations I have been having over the last few months with a wide variety of people, the off-road world would be a lot more impressed if Honda got hold of all the other motorcycle manufacturers and used its undoubted powerful influence to genuinely bring down the noise levels on the single-cylinder four-strokes that are currently losing us far more tracks and doing the movement far more damage than a few sponsors' logos on their scalextric cars.
nSO we are in a ‘locals-only' bar, close to midnight in downtown Barcelona, with a full-on, fagash, newspaper and olive-pip strewn floor of the type very definitely not found on the tourist route.
Semi propped-up on a barstool is the local Barney Gumble, the drunk off the Simpsons. This chap really is a quite remarkable Barney double; the toussled hair, the sad face, the lost expression staring past a stubble chin into his half empty pint pot. Barney turns slowly in his seat, slowly focusses on Malcolm Rathmell's bright blue Sherco paddock jacket (well, it was a bit bright in the surroundings) and eventually rumbles, ''Sherco... motorcycle.''
''Yes,'' says Andreu Codina brightly, ''this is Malcolm Rathmell.'' We elbow to the bar and order three beers.
''Malcom Rathmell Replica, Montesa 348,'' chimes-in Barney, eyes still struggling to adapt to the brightness of the jacket, to the astonishment of Malc and me. Rather hastily I ventured, ''Was it 348 or 349?''
Barney came right back, ''348! 349 was Ulf Karlson Replica...Malcolm Rathmell, incredible eh! I once have Malcolm Rathmell Replica...his name on the side...''
Malc, quite shocked at being recognised - and only 30 years late - fishes out a business card and signs his name on the back, presents it to Barney and buys him a fresh pint for good measure. Barney stares at the beer, then at the signature, now totally convinced that he has not been conned - you can see him mentally comparing the penmanship with the long-forgotten signature on the old Mont.
''Malcolm Rathmell'' he repeats into his beer. Rastus has clearly made a new friend for life...