Welcome to The Carchive, where we strip away the nonsense, the outlandish claims and the ludicrous lifestyle suppositions from vehicle promotional literature and revaluate it based on how things actually were. This week we’re looking at a few JDM offerings, and since the literature is mostly published in Japanese, there’s not a lot of ridiculous verbiage to be explored. Today it’s the turn of the MK1 Honda Ballade. Some of you might know this as the basis of the final car to ever carry the Triumph badge, being built over here in modified form by British Leyland as the Acclaim. Lets see how the unBritishized version compares. 
The Ballade is, basically, a MK 2 Honda Civic with a trunk grafted on the back. I’m going to paint with broad strokes here and make a generalisation. If you start off with a hatchback and stick a third box onto the back of it, old folk will flock to buy. Witness VW Derby compared to Polo, Corolla Sedan as opposed to Hatchback, Ford Orion as opposed to Escort…. I could go on. It has always seemed the case, that “More Experienced” drivers seem to be keener on three-box cars than their more practical, more modern tailgate-toting equivalents. British Leyland knew this. Every Triumph car thus far had been either a sedan or a station wagon, with the exception of the sports cars (which, in some cases, weren’t really sports cars anyway). They understood that any new Triumph would need to conform to this old, stereotypical view, unless a major re-education of society was performed. BL didn’t want to do that. Enter stage left the Honda Ballade. 
The Ballade was just what BL were looking for. OK, it didn’t look especially British, but it was by no means as obviously Oriental as older Datsuns, Toyotas or, indeed, Hondas. With a discrete switch of the badges this traditional, simple sedan could fly the Triumph flag one final time. After “development” under the codename “Bounty”, the Acclaim would soon see production in Cowley, Oxfordshire. There was a certain amount of suspicion among traditionalists, and more than a little moaning from motoring journalists, but there were also at least a few people among them who saw the great advantage of this Japanese cuckoo in the British Leyland nest, and this was underpinned by the fact that the Ballade was, obviously, quite a good car. Technically, though possibly not exactly cutting-edge nor breaking new ground, it was at least in touch with contemporary fashion. In locally assembled, UK form, the Triumph Acclaim was equipped with front-wheel drive, a five-speed, all synchromesh gearbox, dual-circuit disc brakes, a twin-carb overhead-cam engine and four-wheel independent suspension. It meant, of course, that BL finally had a car with which to fight the foreign opposition head-on, especially those competitors from Japan. It was, essentially, cheating. Good on ’em. 
Of course, there were variations between the UK Acclaim and the JDM Ballade, and it all came down to how BL wanted the Acclaim to be positioned in their portfolio. For a start, they didn’t much want the new car to compete with other cars in the Austin, Rover or Morris stables; this wouldn’t achieve anything. So they limited UK cars to only the 72hp, 1335cc engine. This was a terrific unit, revvy, reliable, flexible and imbuing the car with a turn of speed that belied its modest numbers. But still, it would have been nice to have had a bit of extra grunt. The Ballade could be selected with the 1500cc engine, mechanically similar but bigger and with 85hp. That may have only been a small increase numerically, but could well have made a whole lot of difference. 
Also contrasting were the interior specifications. All Acclaims came with a rev-counter, while on Ballades this was only present on 1.5 litre models. Similarly, the interior door trim panels on the 1.3 Ballades left stripped of exposed painted metal, while Acclaims enjoyed full interior panelling, concealing all the metalwork. Generally, in fact, even the most lowly of Acclaims had a standard of interior fitment that was towards the top-end of the Ballade range, up to and including the fitting of optional air-conditioning, which is strangely missing from this Japanese brochure. Incidentally, the cars in this brochure feature a reprofiled nose design that the Acclaim never received; nor did I realise that the Ballade did. Yet, of course, there were plenty of features for the Ballade that Acclaim buyers were denied. A rear screen wiper, for example; electrically adjusted door mirrors, alloy wheels; all forbidden fruit for us. The radio on JDM cars was a strange, inch-tall strip of a thing; either AM only and Alpine badged, or AM/FM with electronic preset tuning. Ours was a twin-wheel Motorola AM unit with Triumph screen printed on it. 
There was also provision for an intriguing gadget named “Electronic Navigator”, which did no such thing. It was basically a fuel computer and would give you instant economy and range readings, but would also count down the miles until you reach your destination based on a value that you had earlier input. Road signs often provided the same data, for those not lucky enough to have The Navigator onboard. A fuel computer DID become available as an optional extra for the Triumph, but it wore Lucas badging, which might have put people off somewhat. 
The recipe, certainly as far as BL were concerned, was a winner, although it didn’t exactly give the Triumph nameplate a new lease of life, more a stay of execution. It also brought with it something that many Triumph customers had ever experienced before: Quality. After this success small Hondas would feature in the Austin Rover portfolio for the next couple of decades; the next Honda Ballade ended up with Rover badges as the 213 and 216, and the generation after that was Civic based. Indeed, the relationship became so cosy that the 800, the Flagship of Rover, was to be based on the Honda Legend. But that was a whole other story. And we’ve already covered it. (Disclaimer: All images are of original manufacturer publicity material, photographed by me. Copyright remains property of Honda Motor Co. Imagine what a Rover NSX could have been like….)
By RoadworkUK
RoadworkUK is the online persona of Gianni Hirsch, a tall, awkward gentleman with a home office full of gently decomposing paper and a garage full of worthless scrap metal. He lives in the village of Moistly, which is a safe distance from London and is surrounded by enough water and scenery to be interesting. In another life, he has designed, sold, worked on and written about cars in exchange for small quantities of money.
Jeff Glucker