1991 Honda Crx Base on 2040-cars

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Takata airbag victim looked like she had been stabbed

We generally take certain principals for granted. The more water you drink, for example, the healthier you'll be. The more time you spend reading car news on Autoblog, the better informed you'll be. And the more airbags your car has, the safer you'll be. Because airbags equal safety. But that's not what some unfortunate drivers of vehicles equipped with Takata airbags are finding, and tragically finding out the hard way.
In what could be the most startling incident resulting from the airbag debacle so far, a woman named Hien Tran of Orlando, FL, was killed by what looked at first like stab wounds on her neck. It later emerged that the fatal injuries could have been inflicted by the faulty airbag on her Honda Accord. Tran bought her Honda secondhand, and may not have been aware that the airbag issue had not been addressed by its previous owner in a previous recall in 2009.
The Orange County Sheriff's Department is investigating the death, but it wouldn't be the only injury resulting from the malfunctioning Takata airbags. The units, employed particularly by Japanese automakers like Honda (which owns part of Takata) and Toyota, are the subject of a massive recall involving some 14 million vehicles from 11 different automakers.

Honda S660 proving popular with middle-age Japanese buyers

The S660 roadster has been a success so far for Honda. (At least, that is, insofar as a niche-market sports car limited to the Japanese Domestic Market can be considered a big seller.) It just hasn't resonated with the customers that the company expected. Honda revealed the S660 in concept form at the Tokyo Motor Show nearly two years ago, and subsequently put it into production. The convertible Kei car pays homage to models like the S500, S2000, and Beat. It packs a tiny 660cc three-cylinder engine mounted amidships and driving the rear wheels. Despite its connection to past models, the S660 features an entirely modern design that, along with its low price, was expected to appeal to younger buyers. But while Honda has already sold out all 8,600 examples it's slated to build this year, a surprising 80 percent of them have been snapped up by customers over the age of 40 who are mostly buying them as second cars. The development is not entirely isolated. As Bloomberg points out, the number of licensed drivers in Japan "under the age of 40 has fallen 46 percent over the last 13 years." Those are rather startling numbers that dwindle the market down for youth-oriented vehicles like the S660. Honda is expected to begin taking orders for next year's allocation of S660s in October. At that point, the company anticipates the average age of its customer base will drop. But with fewer young drivers on the road in Japan, it shouldn't expect it to drop by much.

McLaren-Honda drops the bling for stealth F1 livery

Watch a Formula One grand prix and you can instantly tell which are the McLarens, visible as they are from a mile away with their reflective chrome livery. But that's all about to change as the British team has dropped the chrome in favor of the more subdued livery you see here. Unveiled in time for this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix, the new McLaren livery replaces the bling with a gray so dark that it borders on black. The red accents remain, albeit in a revised pattern. The new livery promises to be less reflective at sunset and flood-lit night races especially, while providing more of a visual break from the Mercedes era now that the team is powered once again by Honda. McLaren first adopted the silver and black livery in 1997 after Marlboro (with its white and red livery) left for Ferrari and the West tobacco brand was brought in instead. The team parted company with West after the ban on tobacco advertising in sports was instituted in Europe in 2005, inserted some red into the livery and replaced the flat silver with chrome. This weekend's race will mark the first time in a decade, then, that McLaren will be racing without the chrome. Featured Gallery 2015 McLaren-Honda MP4-30: Gray Livery News Source: McLaren via Facebook Motorsports Honda McLaren Racing Vehicles F1 livery mclaren-honda