Goodbye Honda, Hello ...Honda

Thats right, I did it, I traded in the trusty 98 Civic lx last night, she served me well, paid for herself in less than three months, and I have zero complaints. But after putting over 40,000 miles on her, averaging 32 mpg, i felt it was time to move on to something a bit , um different...

I present one of the oddest cars in recent years, I traded the civic for a Y2K Honda Insight....

This insight was a one owner car, I took it the local honda dealer for a pre-purchase inspection and they had a full maintenance record, it was purchased at that dealership. its even got a brand new battery pack replaced under warranty less than three months ago, car passed with flying colors. I was able to pick it up almost 3k under book plus my 98 civic, which they listed as a $3500 trade in in the contract...and the local gm dealer made a few bucks, they earned it, best dealer experience ive ever had.

the looks should be interesting when im cruising down the road with the window down and a smoke... hope no one thinks badly when i install the grm sticker... :)

Well, that's cool. I don't see many of those around here, and the ones I do are all silver. Let us know how you like it!

You don't see many of those, period.

definitely cooler than a prius

I've heard they are a lot of fun.. with a K series motor swapped in :p

Someone in the NEPA region autocrosses one of those.

I have been looking for a crashed version of one of these for some time now, but failed to find one. I want to create a real custom rod out of one of my Del Sols by cutting the hatchback portion off of an Insight and welding/fabricating it to the trunk portion of the Del Sol creating a real 3rd gen CRX. I did up a Photoshop rendering but lost it on my computer when I upgraded. - call me crazy!

splitime wrote: I've heard they are a lot of fun.. with a K series motor swapped in :p

Mount the motor in the rear too!

Congrats on the new daily.

racer025 wrote: I have been looking for a crashed version of one of these for some time now, but failed to find one. I want to create a real custom rod out of one of my Del Sols by cutting the hatchback portion off of an Insight and welding/fabricating it to the trunk portion of the Del Sol creating a real 3rd gen CRX. I did up a Photoshop rendering but lost it on my computer when I upgraded. - call me crazy!

ok....ummmm... crazy?! hehe just kidding!

Sweet. How many miles?

racer025 wrote: I have been looking for a crashed version of one of these for some time now, but failed to find one. I want to create a real custom rod out of one of my Del Sols by cutting the hatchback portion off of an Insight and welding/fabricating it to the trunk portion of the Del Sol creating a real 3rd gen CRX. I did up a Photoshop rendering but lost it on my computer when I upgraded. - call me crazy!

I've often wondered if you could do something similar, but with the roof from the insight grafted onto the body of an S2000. How sweet would a fastback, hatch S2000 be?

Very, very cool. Honestly, how fun is it to drive?

Okay, I've driven it for one day, here are my thoughts so far..

It IS fun to drive, but its allot different than a "normal" car.. the gearing is very tall, and the "optimal" shift points are very low, in stock form. I'm still learning to drive it, there are sweet spots for acceleration and the pedal is very sensitive, don't push enough, feels weak, push to far, weak again, but when i get it just right, its down right zippy (I'm not going to pretend its fast, but when i get it right, its fun!)

its very much like endurance racing driving, in fact, i think it'll improve my skills as you need to engine brake (this also kicks in regenerative charging for the battery pack), stay of the brakes until absolutely necessary, and throttle effectively when accelerating. your still trying to keep as much speed as possible, but you don't have allot of power to correct mistakes. lift too much, you loose it, mash the pedal , you loose it (loose it being the power curve.) feels very much like my old s2 jag xj6 with the vacuum actuated throttle. challenging to drive, but not annoyingly so , in a fun way, for me at least.

the engine cuts outs (its supposed to do that) at stop lights and such, which is a bit weird, i automatically want to start it up when it does that, but when you clutch and put it in gear, it starts right back up and there no "go" delay at all.. it will take some getting used too.

So at least thus far, I'm enjoying the challenge , and i averaged 45.8 mpg over 110 miles, mostly 75 mph. As i improve my skills , that should go up a bit. I'm not driving at ludicrously slow speeds or trying to hyper mile, ac is on, etc.. normal driving, in an abnormal car..

it has 88,000 miles as of yesterday....

Nice! always liked those...

Has anyone ever autocrossed a hybrid?...