Innovative Marketing?

I have a teen driver! And actually, thanks to Sears Driving School it's all been a painless experience and she's now finishing up the road portions of the course.

Sears uses Honda Civics for their classes, citing their reliability as a big factor in what must be a brutal life for a car. I could not confirm if they have a formal deal with Honda but even without, what a brilliant marketing move for the manufacturer this is.

The Civic is an extremely pleasant, well engineered ride. The students really enjoy the car and predictably, this is now the vehicle my daughter & her friends want to own themselves.

Honda & the other Japanese brands have fine tuned the "move up" theory of car ownership. They understand that by giving a new driver a great experience in their starter car they will remain faithful to the brand, moving up a model at a time as their earning power increases. In Honda's case, a positive Civic experience sells an Acura RL 20 years later (and hopefully another Civic to the offspring). It's long term planning at it's best. Compare this to the domestic small cars, which in most cases seem designed to turn off a driver for life creating a customer who cannot wait to ditch the car and quite possibly the brand too.