Is it okay to be pleased that Honda and Nissan have decided not to merge after all?

The two Japanese companies last week decided not to follow through on a proposed deal that was met with a fair degree of surprise when they first announced they were considering it at the end of last year. 

Now, after more serious talks, the merger has been officially canned after it turned out that it might not have been quite such a ‘merger of equals’ as Nissan originally thought. 

Like a football manager leaving a club ‘by mutual consent’, things would have been a bit more mutual on one side than the other. Nissan, in a weaker place than Honda (having a market capitalisation of £8 billion, compared with £31bn), risked effectively being a Honda subsidiary – a position it couldn’t countenance. 

Instead, the two companies have decided to carry on working together on products and technology but remain separate entities. 

From a business perspective, I don’t know whether this is a good thing or not. Honestly, I’ve no idea. Would it save loads of money if they shared the same offices and accountants and window cleaners and sandwich providers and so on? 

Shrug of shoulders. Will they survive independently in a world increasingly dominated by state-underwritten Chinese EV makers? 

Hit me up if you know either way. But what I do know is that I’ve always liked Honda because of the kind of independent thinking that brought us the NSX and a business jet with engines on top of the wings and which won it the Isle of Man TT a gazillion times. 

And there’s something quite cool about Nissan’s commitment to its Z cars, plus the 17-year production run of the R35 GT-R (even if you can no longer buy it in most countries and production will have to stop this summer). 

We’ve heard plenty of stories about enthusiastic engineering managers persuading their bigger bosses to give a little money here and there so that Nissan sports cars can still make it into production. 

In that vein, the GT-R will be back, we’re told, but it might take a moment while Nissan decides whether it should have a combustion engine, electric motors or a combination of the two. 

In other words, both companies still have soul and a serious independent spirit about them. And while they are undoubtedly rivals, making cars that compete directly with each other, when they turn their skills to making interesting cars (I grant you that this happens less often than it did), each is wilfully different from the other’s. 

Nissan brought us the Qashqai when nobody expected it, and everyone bought one. Honda gave us the E when nobody expected it, and although nobody bought it, it’s got a virtual aquarium inside it and the most wonderful surface finishes. 

Imagine trying to pull that off with yet another committee overseeing it. One of the characteristics of being in a big conglomerate – as we see in the Volkswagen Group and Stellantis – is that competing brands end up with cars that underneath are the same as each other’s, and that inevitably means they feel a bit like it on the surface too. 

I suppose that’s good for business, allowing a company to make bigger and safer investments, with spending spread across larger sales volumes. Triffic, I’m sure, but I don’t know that, as an enthusiast, I therefore love it that much. 

And remaining solo can be dandy too. I’m reminded of the time Suzuki pulled out of an alliance with Volkswagen because it felt its independence was threatened. That was 14 years ago (minus a bit for some legal wranglings), and Suzuki still seems to be doing just fine – and is still making some cool cars that unmistakably are low-cost, low-weight Suzukis, not something else with Suzuki badging. 

I like it when a proud independent company thinks ‘stuff it, we’ll do it our way’ and keeps on keeping on with its own ideas and values. 

Japanese companies seem to particularly embody it and, for good or ill, I think we’re better off with more rather than less of them. I hope it actually turns out to be better for both.