Honda Mk1 Insight is it a Petrolhead car?

Inspired by this thread

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

I think it is time to ask if the Mk1 Honda Insight is a petrolhead car or not



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Insight#First_g...


The case for

Its a rare unusual car which has barely changed from the Honda VV concept car.
Its all aluminium
Its a techno geekfest
It is single minded in the pursuit of being economical
Its very light
Its a 2 seater

The case Against

Its a hybrid
Its economical
Its FWD

It's certainly interesting, and I do like it, but I wouldn't describe it as a petrolheads car. More a curiosity.

Really like them, have seen a few on the motorway over the years.

I'd have one (Want one!)

I quite like them. They don't have a great deal of grip or straight-line performance but are pretty well balanced and the springs and dampers are well judged.

Emphatically yes, for me. Certainly more fun than 90% of current "sporty" cars.

It's no Integra, but you can see that they were developed by the same company.

ETA: I suppose in many ways it reminds me of some of the little warm hatches of the same period - things like the Saxo VTR; albeit a bit more "grown up".

it's pretty light, low, must have quite a good weight disribution, hasn't got masses of grip and was built by Honda when they were rather more engineering led.

i'd have fun whilst eeking every mile from a gallon on my commute...as i would do if and when things like this exist...

http://www.edison2.com/

winner of:

http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org/teams/edison2

Absolutely yes.

Its also the car that almost bankrupted BMW and damn nr brought FIAT to its knees.

I may be having a total whoosh parrot moment, but can you explain that last sentence please?

C

Honda started working on this in 1994 and first showed it to the public in 1996 I think. It was a decade ahead of its time. Its tech, esp in production and customer form was a generation and more ahead of anything from Europe or America. When they released it properly in 97 I think and 99 in the US, the Germans were in the middle of their power wars, with no visibility that by the middle of the decade the prevailing winds in the market and regulation would be in a massively different direction, i.e. economy. Within a cpl of yrs economy was the biggest single context and the German companies realised they were a decade behind the Japs with *nothing* on the table. VAG had its PD tech and its stable of the 1.9tdi, since become the 2.0 and keeping faith with that has kept its volume of sales. Not to mention its width and breadth of platform, model sharing etc. Merc was already in trouble with other fk ups. BMW though was riding high, the poster boy. It didnt have VAG's ability to spread costs though, it had a massively expensive F1 prog that was going nowhere and now the Japs were about to wipe out its margins with tech that was a decade and 1.5 generations on from anything they had. Competing on the hybrid side wasnt viable, the only thing they had were diesels and the only thing that would save them was by an immediate and massive dumping of every Euro they had into diesel economy tech. BMW buried everything they had and bet the farm on developing their diesels in the mid 00s to stem the hybrid invasion from the Japs whilst they could implement the EfficientDynamics prog to catch up. FIAT one could argue have never caught up/recovered from this efficiency/tech war in the middle market sectors. They recoverd in the small car market, the twin air, etc but that all important middle ground they get buttfked. Nothing on the hybrid tech front, their diesels couldnt compete with the rapid improvements from BMW. FIAT though could do a little of what VAG did, have the sharing and breadth of company though.

So yes, that little Honda Insight has had a brutal and highly significant impact upon Europe's biggest names. It changed the car world and was 10 yrs ahead of anything else when Honda first showed it off.

That would have bankrupted Honda if they sold millions. Rumour suggests each car had a material cost £7000-8000 more than Honda sold them for.