11-26-2014, 10:43 AM
Back in the 90s, I did some contract work for Honda on their manufacturing automation communications protocols. I had to take a quick crash course in Honda's process. The way it was explained to me, the vehicles were manufactured by model year. A model year was defined as a large set of production line specifications (different for each region) that were finalized prior to setting up the production line. All vehicles produced under that specification would belong to the same model year.
What I found interesting was that Kevin's plate indicates that the bike was built to 2012 specs (and according to their NZ website, was sold as a 2012 model), yet built in May of 2013. The interesting bit is that Honda had already built thousands of U.S. and European 2013 models by then. It would seem that Honda set up a line in May of '13 to produce 2012 models for Kevin's region after production of the bulk of the 2013 models for the rest of the world.
I think you'd have to work for Honda to know the reason they did that. One that comes to mind would be that Honda wanted to manufacture more bikes for Kevin's region in '13, but didn't want to go through the trouble and expense of working up a new set of production line specs (probably because it was a small batch). They just reused the 2012 spec.
Whatever the reason, Kevin's plate definitely shows that his 2012 model was actually manufactured after the 2013 models that were built for the Europe and North American markets. Very strange indeed!
What I found interesting was that Kevin's plate indicates that the bike was built to 2012 specs (and according to their NZ website, was sold as a 2012 model), yet built in May of 2013. The interesting bit is that Honda had already built thousands of U.S. and European 2013 models by then. It would seem that Honda set up a line in May of '13 to produce 2012 models for Kevin's region after production of the bulk of the 2013 models for the rest of the world.
I think you'd have to work for Honda to know the reason they did that. One that comes to mind would be that Honda wanted to manufacture more bikes for Kevin's region in '13, but didn't want to go through the trouble and expense of working up a new set of production line specs (probably because it was a small batch). They just reused the 2012 spec.
Whatever the reason, Kevin's plate definitely shows that his 2012 model was actually manufactured after the 2013 models that were built for the Europe and North American markets. Very strange indeed!