Toyota and Honda are striving to get people excited about their product lineups, with more adventurous styling and new performance models, while also playing a bit of catch-up.
The demands of the unintended-acceleration crisis put Toyota's engineers behind in some key technical areas. Meanwhile, Honda is eager to reassert its standing as a powerhouse of powertrains. Honda is launching its Earth Dreams engine family, and Toyota is focusing on direct injection, turbocharging and advanced transmissions.
In the luxury sphere, Lexus aims to improve its sedan offerings to match up better with Mercedes-Benz and BMW, while Acura targets premium rivals Audi, Buick, Infiniti and Volvo with a new compact sedan and a series of key redesigns.
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