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The 2016 Honda Accord Will Save You from Your Awful Adulthood

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Bored man in 2016 Honda Accord car commercial Dreams

Few dramatic themes resonate with audiences quite as deeply as the old truism that it sucks to grow up.

From J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan to the Toys ‘R’ Us jingle, there is an entire genre of art devoted to the universal desire to retain or recapture one’s carefree childhood. Now, Honda would like to add its commercial for the 2016 Honda Accord to the canon:


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Entitled “Dreams,” the ad begins as an ode to childhood creativity, with a young boy playing with Hot Wheels, go-karts, and remote control cars, but dreaming of burnouts, Formula One races, and high-speed chases.

Then we smash-cut to the present day: the young dreamer is a middle-aged drone now, stuck in traffic (and a life he hates, one presumes) as he commutes to his job (which is not racecar driving or being a hero cop, one presumes).

But what’s this? It’s a 2016 Honda Accord—a vehicle with such sporty styling that he actually gets out of his car for a better look, and then giddily hallucinates that it’s being cleaned by a Honda pit crew.


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“Keep the dream alive,” says Honda voiceover guy Fred Savage, former child star of the nostalgic television show The Wonder Years, subtly reinforcing the notion of reclaimed youth.

But can a Honda Accord actually send a lifeless middle-aged man into a Proustian reverie, and restore the sense of imagination that years of corporate drudgery have beaten out of him?  It does have a nice design, and its optional 3.5-liter V6 is the most powerful engine ever offered in a Honda sedan… but it’s still not exactly a performance car.

The commercial is very well made and manages some genuine poignancy, but Honda might be expending it on the wrong vehicle. Those of us who still “dream” about fast cars typically go to bed with visions of Type R models dancing in our heads.