hey_mikey
Well-Known Member
This holds some weight as well. When I was still selling Hondas, I had quote a few older customers looking for a fairly loaded small sedan with a manual transmission. Since Honda (at least in the US) doesn't offer the EX or EX-L sedan with a manual, the Si is the only "loaded" version (power everything, alloy wheels, sunroof, premium audio, etc.) available with a stick. If it was too raw, a lot of those customers wouldn't have anything to consider at all, and would be shopping another brand.I also think besides emissions some customers, maybe more than we think buy these cars for looks and social status. A pure performance version will turn away many customers for being too loud, uncomfortable or too raw. Another considerent is that for a 100k there is always a much more performance oriented beast available and they do not want to undercut it with the lower models. I remember in the 80s when a lot of muscle cars were more affordable, as well as a lot of mid price range japanese sports cars, nowadays not so many. Maybe it is just my impression i did not actually compare how many models and what prices they had.