EVENT: Honda Switzerland 50 year anniversary “Fan event”

Maybe it was the terrible weather, or maybe it was the name of the event (Fan event) that made me have some wrong expectations. While the Honda 50 year anniversary event yesterday was genernally some welcoming new and nice event, i have the feeling that the whole event had a bit of an identity crisis, while they were overwhelmed by the amount of people who wanted to participate and at the same time they missed the opportunity to connect to their fan base. In general i had the feeling that Honda Switzerland managed to miss a lot of great opportunities for their once-in-a-lifetime Celebration.

But let’s start from the beginning. The event was heavily advertized on social media, and therefore fully booked after only two days. The only way to get your car into the event then was via an accredited car club. I was fortunate to join the “Honda Gang” club. A club that mostly consisted of modern day Civic typeR owners with mild to wild visual tuning. After i met them in a nearby parking lot and realized that they’re quite a nice bunch of people, we headed to the event.
The entrance was a bit chaotic and we had to cueue two times. We had to be there officially two hours before the event started, and since we were such a big club, they put us on display at a close parking lot, which somehow was detached from the event itself. I was quite a bit disapointed. Honda was using an EK9 on their advertizing material and i tried to ask them a few times if they want to display mine at the event, but i didn’t get any response. Instead me and some other cool and rare cars (Integra swiss edition 1/100 limited, etc.) had to park in the nearby parking lot with many random cars and even some non-Honda visitor cars. Anyway.

Every participant was gifted with a little Goodie-bag by honda, vouchers for free food and drinks, a special sticker, etc., which was really nice of them.

They put up a lot for the event, a big tent, Japanese and swiss food trucks, free Redbulls from their sponsor, a band, a DJ, an F1 simulator and several special exhibition booths, Themed “classics”

“Sports / racing” and “TypeR”

plus a motorcycle amd a 25 year hybrid technology celebration booth

and a merch store stand.

Throughout the event there where some special activities like F1 Sim racing and much more. However i had the feeling i’ve seen most of the things after two hours. even before the event really kicked off. The weather was super shitty and the fact that nobody really went to check out the club cars made me leave the event early. And also because me and my gear were soaked and freezing.

The booths were nice, but the “TypeR” booth was consinsting abou too newest gen CTR’s in three different colours. That’s it.

The classics booth had some nice exhibitions but i also came up with at least 10 cars that would have been even cooler and really special. Same with the motorsports corner. The selection of cars was really lame when you think about what cool Honda Motorsports cars exist in switzerland (Lemans teams, Formula nippon cars, Hillclimb cars, grassroots Slalom racing builds, etc, etc. etc).

I also realized that approx 50% of the guests were actually dealership owners / employeers which were also informed badly about the event and couldn’t bring many of their cool privately owned cars due to the sellout. But at the event itself one was thinking that there would have been space for plenty of more cars. And i really wondered why there was a (sorry for the owner) cheap modified EK3 in not the best shape next to the Main stage, while my mint and rare EK9 had to park outside. It really shows how much they know about their own lineup and enthusiasts. I don’t want to blame anybody, i just think it’s sad they missed the opportunity.

The Opening speech of Honda switzerland CEO Mr Schmid himself was nice though, also mentioning the clubs and the owners.

At the end i left the whole thing pretty puzzled and i wasn’t the only one.

What was it? An exhibition of their current lineup with test-drives for potential future owners?, a celebration of their history? a celebration of motorsports and the typeR brands? An event for the Enthusiast? the Owner? their Dealerships or Themselves? I don’t really know. it was all and nothing. I’m sure with better weather it would have been much more fun alltogether, but yeah.

I’m still confused what it was, even though i saw some cool cars and met some nice people and had an excellent (and free) Chicken donburi. Special thanks to Honda switzerland for setting it up (albeit with a lot of potential for improvement) and for the Hondagang for leeting me join them.

PS: Their Partner (Automobilrevue) Also set up a special page for the 50 years Honda switzerland celebration with some historic informatino about the Models etc.  In October they’re gonna publish a special about the VTEC engines.
https://automobilrevue.ch/50-jahre-honda-schweiz

Check out some additional photos and some of my favourite cars below in the gallery: