Honda Legend Review
Published: 11th February 2007
Honda Legend
Ease of Use
The Legend is fitted with a reversing camera, which uses the centrally mounted Telematics TFT screen to show you what is behind the car. Which in theory might sound a good idea, but in practice we weren’t convinced. In adverse weather we found the camera lens need cleaning off quite often, plus when reversing we prefer to look over our shoulders and not down at a screen (which in bright light was hard to see). We would have preferred to have had all round parking sensors.
Front and rear space is quite good but this is at the sacrifice of the boot which is too small for an executive saloon; it struggled to fit two soft holdall bags, a pram base and a few other bits and pieces. The odd shaped boot (452 litres) is smaller than Honda’s Accord (459 litres).
Safety and Security
The Honda Legend is fitted with the normal array of passive and active safety equipment that you would expect to see fitted to a £40,000 executive saloon. Front, side and curtain airbags, anti-lock-brakes with brake assist and (VSA) vehicle stability control.
In addition:
Honda has developed Collision Mitigation Braking System (CMBS) which can predict the possibility of a collision and can minimise the risk of you shunting the car in front.
The system is made up of three main parts: a millimetre-wave radar sensor in the front grille of the car, a brake actuator and motorised seatbelt pre-tensioners. If the radar sensor recognises a collision is imminent, CMBS reacts in the following way:
The driver is given an audio warning and a visual ‘Brake’ warning on the dashboard display. Then if no action is taken, the audio/visual alarm is given again, an E-tensioner lightly tugs at the seatbelt as a further warning, and light braking is applied automatically. Ultimately if no action is taken and the system decides a collision is unavoidable, strong braking is applied with strong seatbelt retraction. We weren’t confident enough to put it to the test though.
Honda has even considered pedestrians with an active pop up bonnet which is designed to minimise the impact in the event of a collision. On impact the bonnet is lifted by 100mm which creates clearance between the metalwork and the unyielding engine bay, to help reduce pedestrian head injuries.
