30 Years of Honda Accord in 2013 [Infographic]

The first Honda Accord—built in sunny Marysville, Ohio, whose city motto is “Only Two People Here Named Mary!”—rolled off the line with a stout 75 horsepower and the low, low, bargain-basement price of $8,245. Reaganomics sure was swell, wasn’t it? But it’s safe to say that since then, the Accord has grown a bit: a base price of $21,680, an unsneerable 185 horsepower, and a curb weight substantial enough to prevent the kind of structural crushing normally reserved for at-home can recyclers. This year marks the 30th continuous row of its production in the Midwest, which makes the Honda Accord more American than Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Dodge Challenger. (One was built in Canada, while the other would merely be funnier if he was.)

Since them, nine million Accords have been built, and if you live in Southern California, approximately 8.8 million are still on the road. To celebrate the ongoing continuation of the longest Japanese nameplate since Doraemon, Honda assembled this long infographic detailing the Accord’s whims and whimsys, its ongoing evolution from funny furrin’ deathtrap to America’s Sweetheart, a moniker formerly reserved for Jennifer Aniston. Newsflash: it doesn’t expand by that much—only about 13 inches separates the first Accord from the last, so no 1970s-Lincoln proportions here. And it’s interesting to see what new features it picked up along the way—today’s Accord has Hondalink, but why no trunk-mounted six-CD changer? And, it turns out, the Accord has always had a dowdy paint palette.



via