Toyota beats Honda into NASCAR, but Toyota teams might be using HONDA JETS to fly their teams to the tracks! For several years, Toyota has owned a hangar at the Long Beach, (CA) Airport, just a few minutes drive south on the 405 Freeway from their USA corporate headquarters complex in lovely Torrance. Toyota has an air division in Japan, but it's been only a small secret that Toyota has for several years been working on 
their own version of a corporate jet for not only their home market, but for the US as well and other countries where they think they can find an audience. In fact, Toyota has stated that their intention is to make an airplane for the average commuter which will be as easy and simple to fly as a modern car is to drive! Because there is little commercial air traffic in Japan, compared to other countries of its size and wealth, and while the Japanese public is "encouraged" (exhorted, really, with affordable fares for most and to-the-second reliability) to use the nation's excellent train system, Toyota still sees a need for their executives to get to and fro quickly and safely. For instance, Toyota is one of the very few large Japanese corporations which do not have their headquarters in Tokyo; Toyota's HQ is located in Toyota City (yep, their own city --- pretty cool, huh?) just outside Nagoya, a couple of hundred miles from Tokyo. In spite of all this, it appears Honda has beat Toyota to the punch in the US market, as their announcement the week of July 25th makes clear.
Honda has announced that after using (and, you can bet, secretly testing, de-constructing and reverse engineering) various versions of small business jets for about nine years, the company has decided to enter the very light jet market with its airborne equivalent of the Honda Civic.
Honda has now partnered with established American aircraft manufacturer Piper to bring the innovative small jet to market. Honda will establish a new U.S. company for the venture, with production likely to start in 3-4 years, after the lengthy FAA testing and certification process is completed. Eager buyers will be able to place orders by the fall of 2006.
The 7-seat HondaJet features, as Honda-watchers might expect, innovative aerodynamics for increased fuel efficiency and performance, and a new jet engine designed and developed by Honda (shown at right).
Comments