2008 Honda Fit Sport on 2040-cars

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Honda and Mario Andretti cite pedestrians for excessive slowness

Honda and the Andretti family have a lot to celebrate at the moment. Andretti Autosport driver Ryan Hunter-Reay won the 2014 Indianapolis 500 in his Honda-powered car, and Marco Andretti, Mario's grandson, also managed to take the third step on the podium. Apparently, the victory is making them feel magnanimous because Honda and Mario Andretti are giving the chance to ride with him in a two-seat, open wheel car.
To promote the contest, they created the Honda Speed Patrol to ticket anyone going too slow. It's an interesting idea, and the chance to ride with Andretti would be the opportunity of a lifetime. Perhaps the biggest shock of the video, though, might be when you realize how short Mario is when you see him milling about in public. Scroll down to watch one of America's most respected racers cite people in Chicago for being too slow.

Honda releases H2O brand bottled water to promote FCX Clarity

Remember when Hollywood stars Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds) and Joshua Jackson (Fringe) took a Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell into Death Valley and "survived" by drinking water from the car's tailpipe? Honda has taken that idea into movie theaters in Australia. The idea, but not fuel cell water itself. Honda has created a bottled water brande called H2O, and it's meant to promote the hydrogen-powered Honda FCX Clarity as part of Honda's "clever thinking" campaign. The headline message, just as it was for Mercedes, is that a hydrogen fuel cell car emits nothing but water vapor, which is actually safe to drink. To give movie fans a hands-on experience, Honda Australia filled a number of Palace Cinemas movie theaters with free disposable bottles of H2O water. Of course, since there are only a handful of FCX Clarity vehicles in the world today and it would take a lot of driving to fill up that many bottles, Honda admits that, "if you're holding a bottle of our specially produced H2O water in your hand right now, you've been drinking plain old spring water. If you want to taste the real thing, you'll have to travel to California, Japan or the UK where the FCX is currently available." Of course, why anyone would want to associate themselves with the unending waste that is bottle water, a product that has not proven itself to be any better than good tap water, is beyond us. But that's what Honda is doing, as you can see in the promotional video about the stunt below. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

BMW tops Consumer Reports 2023 Brand Report Card

Feels like we wrote about Consumer Reports' 2022 Brand Report Car and 10 Top Picks a few weeks ago, but it was last April. So the mag is back with a ranked roster of 32 brands and 10 vehicles in four categories for your debating pleasure. Starting with the brands, last year's top three were Subaru, Mazda and BMW. This year, the Munich crew climbed two spots to win the prize thanks to "Superb road test scores and solid results in CR’s reliability and owner satisfaction surveys." Subaru narrowly fell to second, maintaining its four-year run in the top three. Mini, eighth last year, jumped five spots to get the last step on the podium. The rest of the top 10 were Lexus (up one spot from last year), Honda (down one spot from last year), Toyota (up three), Genesis (up 12), Mazda (down six), Audi (down three) and Kia (up eight). The magazine and testing outfit says its Brand Report Card "[reveals] which automakers are producing the most well-performing, safe, and reliable vehicles based on CRÂ’s independent testing and member surveys," and that "Brands that rise to the top tend to have the most consistent performance across their model lineups." Last year's top 10 had six automakers from Japan, three from Germany (giving Mini credit for England), none from the U.S. or South Korea, and five luxury brands. This year's list counts five makes from Japan, two from Germany because Porsche fell out of the top ten, two from South Korea, still none from the U.S., and four luxury brands. Buick again ranked as the best domestic, dropping to 12th after being 11th last year. The big mover was Lincoln, its 10-place jump up to 16th attributed to better reliability from the Corsair and Nautilus. Tesla's improved overall reliability saw it climb six spots to 17th. Dodge climbed one spot to 15th. Jeep got out of the penalty box in last to come second-to-last. Land Rover fell three places into the penalty spot.  CR's top 10 vehicle models The 10 Top Picks list is practically a new list. Only two holdovers made it to 2023, those being the Subaru Forester and Kia Telluride.