Honda
Report: All-New Chevrolet Aveo To Debut At Detroit Auto Show
General Motors held a small event last night in Detroit (we weren’t in attendance) where new products were shown and detailed, and while no official information or product specifications have broke from that event, information has leaked out suggesting that we’ll see the next-generation Chevrolet Aveo in January at the North American International Auto Show. Additionally, Chevrolet re-confirmed that the global Spark minicar will be coming to America, slotted underneath the Aveo in the automaker’s product line.
Driven: 2010 Hyundai Tucson
The canyon roads in and around Beverly Hills, California, provide some of the best driving scenarios in the country. Long stretches of tight corners mixed in with rapid elevation changes make for a challenging and fun day of motoring, and give us the ability to really wring out our vehicle of choice—immediately pointing out any flaws in suspension tuning, balance, power delivery, shift fluidity, and overall grace. You really want a Lotus Elise for times like this. You can imagine our surprise when Hyundai chose these roads as the testing grounds for the all-new 2010 Tucson crossover.
2012 Kia Forte Koup May Get Turbocharged
Just yesterday, we posted our list of cars that are all bark and no bite. The good folks at Kia must have an ear to the ground, as the Forte Koup may be getting a turbocharger for the model year 2012, Edmunds reports.
Los Angeles 2009: Honda P-NUT Concept Is Weird, Awesome
File this one under the “weird = cool” category. Honda’s Personal-Neo Urban Transport (P-NUT) concept is nothing short of futuristic, and shows what possibilities are in store for city cars moving forward. The weird angles and funky shape are the work of Honda’s Los Angeles design crew.
First Look: 2011 Chevrolet Cruze
The 2011 Chevrolet Cruze is still many months from its on-sale date (third quarter of 2010). And even though we’ve seen camo-less studio shots of the Cruze before, we now have the official images and details about the U.S.-spec model that comes our way to replace the Cobalt next year.
Driven: 2010 Honda Accord Crosstour
Let’s face it—the latest trend of sleek-lined crossovers is here to stay, and we can look forward to more and more manufacturers creating new vehicles based on this larger design ethos. (See what you’ve done, BMW X6?) So Honda, known for game-changing products, was certain to remind us that the brand new Accord Crosstour had been in the works for many years. “We had been planning this one since before anyone even saw the X6,” we were assured by one executive. When we asked if the Crosstour was in any way developed alongside the recently released Acura ZDX, we were told that the two vehicles have nothing in common with one another. In fact, Honda pointed out that while the ZDX was designed and engineered in America, the Crosstour is, for the most part, the fruit of Japanese labor.
Driven: 2010 Acura TL SH-AWD 6MT
Opening the office door onto the parking lot, we shivered just a bit. It may have been the fall weather descending upon us, but the face of the Acura TL SH-AWD, it’s imposing, angular slabs of sheet metal glaring at us from under the slanted headlights and diminutive badge, probably contributed to our brief shudder. Having already seen, addressed, and come to terms with the TL’s appearance, we armed ourselves with the keys and got in.
Driven: 2010 Honda Insight, Hardly Honda
Let’s not compare it to the Toyota Prius, as difficult as that may be. And let us preface this by saying we love small Hondas. The Fit, S2000, and Civic (especially the Si) are some of our favorite cars to drive. With that in mind, let’s take another opportunity to discuss the 2010 Honda Insight.
List: Ten Cars We Wish Were Still Sold Here
In honor of our sad farewell to the Honda S2000, we bring you this list of fairly recent cars we wish we could still buy in the U.S.
Driven: Saying Goodbye To The Honda S2000
Throughout the 1990s, the Mazda Miata was the go-to choice for inexpensive, lightweight, whipping-boy roadster fun. But all of that changed in 1999 when Honda launched the S2000 with its mean little style, simplistic interior, and high-revving (9000 rpm!) 2.2-liter four. And while the Miata went through a series of refreshes and shortened its name (to MX-5) since that time, the Honda proved to be a very stiff competitor without many changes over its lifespan. We grew to love the S2000 because of its taut, firm suspension, incredible steering feel, and impeccable transmission—the six-speed manual gearbox is, to this day, one of the best sticks we’ve ever driven—and we were indeed saddened when American Honda announced that 2009 would be the S2000’s last model year.
First Look: 2010 Acura MDX And RDX
Yesterday, we had the chance to sample three of Acura’s 2010 model year offerings — the revised RDX, MDX, and TSX V-6. And while the…
First Look: 2010 Acura ZDX
Acura’s genre-bending ZDX debuted in prototype form earlier this year at the New York Auto Show, but parent company Honda has officially spilled the beans about the ZDX’s inner workings, along with releasing a few production photos. Not much has changed from the original prototype shown in the Big Apple, save the natural toning down of concept-happy lighting.
Driven: 2010 Kia Forte
While sitting around a candlelit table at Chandler’s Crabhouse in downtown Seattle, we talked with other journalists about our recent drive in Kia’s all-new Forte sedan—the replacement for the long-running Spectra. We discussed our generally lukewarm driving impressions, but still resolved that the Forte is a good competitor in the compact segment. One colleague said, “If I only write about the drive experience, it could come off as a bad review—but it isn’t actually a bad car at all.” So stay with us here, because while there may not be any juicy, exciting, sports-car-type bits about the Kia Forte, it’s still a perfectly adequate player in a segment that needs to appeal to the widest variety of shoppers. Think about the Nissan Sentra, Toyota Corolla, and Ford Focus sedans—these cars are tragically vanilla, but they still sell in droves. And so the Kia Forte comes to town, bringing with it a bigger pile of standard equipment, attractive design, and a very low price point. None of these cars are particularly exciting, and the Forte still manages to seal up the whole compact sedan package better than these aforementioned competitors.
Keepers: Honda S2000 – Community
Current or future S2000 owners are blessed with an active enthusiast community spread across the U.S. as well as several countries overseas. And we’re not just talking about occasional parking lot gatherings; these folks love the S2000 but more importantly, they love driving the S2000. Three websites—S2Ki.com , S2Kca.com , and S2000.com —should be in every S2000 owner’s bookmark list because they are the definitive sites to visit for complete model information. Within these digital library stacks are a wealth of information, including technical help and aftermarket performance tips, all crafted from the folks who know these cars best.
Keepers: Honda S2000—Shopping
Traditionally, even well maintained sports cars tend to be maintenance-heavy due to their high-strung personalities. There is good news, however, for all you would-be Honda S2000 owners, because the S2000—aside from being a high-strung sports car—is still a Honda. That means high levels of reliability despite its performance car status.
Keepers: Honda S2000
In the broad realm of performance motoring, there are essentially three classifications of enthusiasts: Those who seek pure power, those who seek pure finesse, and those who seek a balance of the two. For those seeking finesse, top-down sports motoring doesn’t get much better than the Honda S2000, and while the high-revving, 240 horsepower four banger under hood won’t satisfy the power hungry, it does propel the S2000 with enough punch to get an inexperienced driver into trouble, and boy does it sound good doing it.
List: The Top 10 Most Futile Formula 1 Teams of All-Time
Ross Brawn—former technical director of the highly successful Ferrari Formula 1 team and last year’s Team Principal at Honda F1—announced last week that he had bought out the former Honda team, restyling the outfit as the Brawn GP team.
Driven: 2009 Chevrolet Cobalt SS Coupe
When General Motors introduced the first Chevrolet Cobalt SS for 2005, it was praised within the sport compact scene for its supercharged power and relatively cheap price point, though the car didn’t really have the overall refinement to make it something extra special. Thus, Chevy has gone back to the drawing board and come up with something it can really be proud of. This latest addition to the Cobalt lineup was tuned and tested on Germany’s Nürburgring and finally has the power and poise to be taken seriously as a true performance car.
Driven: 2009 Honda Fit Sport
Even though the original Fit debuted in 2001, we Americans were deprived of the little Honda that could until it finally arrived Stateside in 2006. After years of successful sales in Japan and Europe (where it sold as the Jazz) the folks at Honda decided to see how the diminutive hatchback would do in the bigger-is-better United States auto market. At that time, a gallon of regular unleaded still cost less than three dollars and consumers were lined up for miles waiting for new crossovers and sport-utilities to hit dealer lots. Not even Honda had anticipated that the Fit would sell roughly 80,000 units each year in America.
Driven: We Drive the 2009 Mazda6
Hard as it may be to fathom, we automotive journalists get things wrong every once in a while. Despite perpetually cheering for the 2003-2008 Mazda6’s ragtag charms and dynamic excellence in a crowd of somnambulant sedans, it never really sold. Nevermind that it was a wieldy package and fun to grab by the scruff on winding roads, it languished on showroom floors while far duller drives poured out of showrooms like so many bags of rice. Heck, we even heartily applauded the availability of a segment-best three separate body styles (sedan, wagon, and touring), as well as a genuine high-performance variant, the Mazdaspeed6. Still no dice. Great handling and a multiplicity of formats are evidently no substitute for outright size and power in the family sedan stakes. Not that we’re bitter or anything.
Categories
Most Popular
