Originally Posted by
fairflyer
You make it sound like the pursuit of developing the Bugatti Veyron for Volkswagen, ridiculously expensive vanity project, but ultimately a showcase of their technical capabilities. Arguably though, that genuinely ups the status of VW group overall, increasing car sales, whilst I doubt a similar effect could be seen to have crossed over into stronger brand and therefore sales for other Honda products. Yes, they're a very clever lot, those Honda guys, but will they have sold any more Civics or lawn mowers because they can make a clever little jet too - and the jet engine that goes in it? Would like to see a University study on that and brand value from doing crazy, clever, hideously expensive stuff! I wonder if someone really thought once, say fifteen years ago, they could sell a thousand Hondajets in several years? Or, it was just a technical showcase primarily and if they sold a few hundred over a few years, that would be a bonus?
I have a hunch that it's a combination of all of the above. One perk of being a "mega-corporation" is that you can afford to experiment with things while looking decades down the road. Only Honda knows what their end game with all this is, and they're not really saying. Besides, "hideously expensive" is in the eyes of the beholder...