thats a bit silly, because as far as we know, ONLY TWO jap
manufacturers have properly contested F1 before. And Honda did NOT
win the constructor's title. They were merely engine suppliers.
Williams and McLaren were the ones who won the constructor's title.
Currently, Honda is going nowhere as a full F1 constructor itself
as well.
Anyways, to have to refer to past glories, I can name a lot of past
glories for other jap amnufacturers. For one, Honda has never won
or done well in international GT racing, while Nissan, Mazda, and
to a certain extent, Toyota, have. Toyota, Subaru, Mitsubishi have
all had rallying success as well. Mazda's 787B won le Mans
outright.
In the introduction of innovative-technology-wise, honda only has
the Vtec and i-Vtec to offer. Other jap manufacturers have offered
a whole host of innovative technologies such as Nissan's ATTESA,
ATTESA-ETS, ATTESA-ETS Pro, HICAS. It's RB26DETT engine is as
legendary as Honda's B16B and B18C-series engines. And to that mix
we can throw in Mazda's 13B-REW and Toyota's 2JZ-GTE engines.
In conclusion, Honda is no doubt a major manufacturer, and perhaps
the only jap manufacturer to have ever had some degree of F1
success. But to say the civic raises the bar all-round for mid-size
jap saloons and coupes, I disagree.
