1988 Honda Crx Dx Coupe 2-door 1.5l on 2040-cars

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Honda CR-Z carbon-fiber prototype

When Honda rolled out the CR-Z a few years ago, it hoped to bridge the gap between those who would save the planet and those who would rather burn all of its resources in a glorious cloud of tire smoke. But enthusiasts recalling the CRX of 1980s vintage balked, imploring Honda to ditch the heavy battery packs and electric motors in favor of a lighter-weight, more conventional powertrain. At this point it seems less likely that Honda would do so at one end of the market than Porsche would ditch the hybrid component of its 918 Spyder at the other. But that doesn't mean Honda isn't still cooking up ways to curb the CR-Z's weight. And it had just one such idea waiting for us when we visited its Japanese R&D center at Tochigi last week.
Nestled in between the JDM hatchbacks, powertrain test mules and new technology prototypes Honda rolled out for us sat the experimental CR-Z you see here. While it may look mostly like the hybrid sport-hatch you can pick up at your local dealer (albeit blacked out), nearly all of this prototype's bodywork has been completely replaced, as have its basic underpinnings, with carbon-fiber reinforced plastic. The exotic material is usually reserved for high-end exotics, but like BMW is democratizing its use in the new i3, so too is Honda researching ways to implement the use of carbon fiber on a mass scale. This one-of-a-kind CR-Z prototype stands, for the time being, as the embodiment of that effort.
Driving Notes

Volkswagen's latest ad is not subtle | Autoblog Podcast #509

On this week's podcast, Mike Austin and David Gluckman are joined by special guest James Riswick, who has been driving a lot of new cars lately. All of them are discussed, plus a few more from Mike and David, and Mike rants a bit about a new VW Atlas commercial. The episode wraps up with the traditional doling out of Spend My Money buying advice, during which David briefly goes out into left field. (He's back now, don't worry.) The rundown is below. Remember, if you have a car-related question you'd like us to answer or you want buying advice of your very own, send a message or a voice memo to podcast at autoblog dot com. (If you record audio of a question with your phone and get it to us, you could hear your very own voice on the podcast. Neat, right?) And if you have other questions or comments, please send those too. Autoblog Podcast #509 Topics and stories we mention GMC Sierra HD Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Mazda CX-5 Honda CR-V vs. Mazda CX-5 Mini Countryman Honda Clarity Fuel Cell Ford F-150 Raptor Lexus RC 200t VW Atlas "Luv Bug" commercial Used cars! Rundown Intro - 00:00 What we're driving - 02:43 Ad of the week - 41:40 Spend My Money - 49:14 Total Duration: 56:27 Get The Podcast iTunes – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes RSS – Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator MP3 – Download the MP3 directly Feedback Email – Podcast at Autoblog dot com Review the show on iTunes Marketing/Advertising Podcasts Ford GMC Honda Lexus Mazda MINI Volkswagen mazda cx-5 ford f-150 raptor gmc sierra hd volkswagen atlas mazda mx-5 rf lexus rc 200t

A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.