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IIHS says these are the safest cars of 2013

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has revealed its annual list of Top Safety Picks, an award that highlights automobiles it says offer "superior crash protection." A new and still more significant award, the Top Safety Pick+ honor, is given to those vehicles that earn good ratings for occupant protection in four out of five areas of measure. And while some 117 vehicles were given the TSP seal of approval for 2013, just 13 passed muster for TSP+.
To be fair, IIHS only evaluated 29 vehicles with its new testing procedures for TSP+ (we'd expect that the number of qualified cars will rise substantially for 2014). Luxury and Near Luxury midsize cars were the first groups evaluated, followed by midsizers in the Moderately Priced Cars category - unsurprisingly, it's only midsize cars that you'll find among the class this year.
Only two luxury sedans made the list of 13 for 2013: the Acura TL and Volvo S60. The other 11 cars on the list included entries from domestic, Japanese and German car makers: Dodge Avenger, Chrysler 200, Ford Fusion, Honda Accord (sedan and coupe), Kia Optima (but not its close kin, the Hyundai Sonata, strangely), Nissan Altima, Subaru Legacy and Outback, Suzuki Kizashi and the Volkswagen Passat all made the grade.

Honda reveals next-gen Fit Hybrid

Psst! Remember late last month when we showed you those Japanese magazine scans purporting to show the next Honda Fit? The ones with the markedly more aggressive snout and Cuisinart-blade alloys? Yup, they were the real deal, but they weren't the standard model, they were images of the new Hybrid. We know this because Honda has just released a handful of images and some details on its forthcoming gas-electric hatchback, and the images line up perfectly.
The big story for the third-generation Fit Hybrid will be the fuel economy, naturally. Honda says it has achieved economy ratings of 36.4 kilometers per liter - 86 miles per gallon - on its home-market cycle, highest among all hybrid models in Japan and a 35-percent improvement over the current Fit Hybrid, a model not sold in the US.
Honda says it has achieved economy ratings of 86 mpg on its home-market cycle.

Acura NSX will use Cosworth block, plus other neat tidbits

The blue NSX you see here was built just two weeks ago. Prototype number six, it rolled off Acura's newest assembly line in Ohio and was rushed out to the Monterey peninsula for various car week activities. We had a chance to sit down with several members of the NSX team to discuss the car, the long road from concept to production, and some interesting details. Below are some choice bits from our conversations. Acura is pretty proud of the fact that NSX version 2.0 was designed and is being built in the US. The new assembly line, called the Performance Manufacturing Center, is in Honda's hometown of Marysville, Ohio. While the line is brand new, the building has seen many uses over its lifetime, most recently as a warehouse facility. PMC staff numbers about 100, with 60 technical and 40 non-technical associates. The car uses parts sourced globally, and one of those sources is Cosworth. The engine blocks and heads come from the English firm and get assembled into twin-turbo powerhouses at Honda's nearby Anna, Ohio, engine plant. The Cosworth name is rarely associated with a bad engine, so we were geeked to hear the NSX's 550-plus-horsepower hybrid powertrain has good genes. Acura hasn't decided how many cars will come to the US each year, but supplies will be limited. We're told there is a total figure for global sales – basically anywhere Honda and Acura vehicles are sold – but they're not ready to divulge that number. Dealer allocation is also yet to be sorted out, although we're told that any dealer that has the necessary tools and equipment to service the new NSX will be able to sell them. Acura currently has 272 US dealers. The switch from the transverse engine originally planned to a longitudinal twin-turbo engine threw everyone involved for a loop. The designers had to lengthen their nearly finalized design, and the engineers working on the production process had to revise or redo much of their work. Though we've been waiting a while for the car since the concept first surfaced in 2012, it's pretty amazing to think that the car was engineered one and a half times and a new factory was built in about three years. But yeah, it's delayed, with series production now set to commence in the spring of 2016. One result of the switch to a longitudinal engine is a transmission hump in the cargo area aft of the engine. The hold is still sized to fit a bag of golf clubs, though it will be a tight fit.