Madness Shop Manual

I’ve given up on new cars, for the most part. Super-efficient ‘hybrids’ get the same mileage as the old, battered CRX HF does; ’styling’ has gone down the tubes in favor of squares on wheels; being able to survive accidents is more important than being able to avoid them…

the list for my dislike goes on and on, but I won’t bore you with the details. When the CRZ was announced, I was so excited I peed myself. Twice. After cleaning up the mess, I saw it:

That’s a whole lot of wasted steel right there. There’s an old saying that goes something like this:

“Seek not to follow in the footsteps of the great men of old, but rather seek what they sought.“

There are a lot of ways to interpret that, but for the purpose of this article, let’s assume you can only interpret it as:

Honda has lost sight of what its goals were, and cannot be trusted to effectively innovate. They are re-hashing the same principles over and over and are making no gains.

I hate to admit it, but I’ve lost faith in Honda’s vision. Thankfully, there are some companies coming to the forefront. You’ll need to twist your mind around a little, and redefine what you think the CRX is. It’s not a sporty econobox, the CRX is a smart car. Just bear with me for a moment, and I’ll explain. Economy cars could be defined as high-mileage utilitarian cars that are at least somewhat nerdy-looking and do not have the ability to pick up chicks (or guys, but I’m playing to my primary audience here). The CRX was a bit different because it actually does have sex appeal and is fun to drive. It was built on econobox ideals, but had gone above and beyond while keeping the price tag low. A win-win in every direction.

The smart car is the perfect econobox. It’s nerdy, lacks sex appeal, and is very utilitarian for everyday use. It’s also uglier than sin:

There is just no way I could feel cool driving that thing around unless I’m pulling into a convention to discuss partition tables and stack overflow errors. There are cool aspects to it, though:

1. It gets good mileage
2. It comes with only two seats
3. It’s cheap
4. It’s MR
5. You can put a GSXR motor into it (more info)

Now, take all that, put a sexy body around it, and stuff a bi-turbo v6 into the back, and you have the Smart Roadster:

I consider this to be the most true reincarnation of the CRX. It’s fun, efficient, sexy, and cheap. Not only could I drive it to the nerd-fests and feel like I belong, but I could also take it to the track and feel like I’m being competitive (the bi-turbo v6 puts out 215 hp and weighs in under 1900lbs). I’m not sure that I’m going to rally to get these imported to the US, but I’m going to keep my eyes open in the future. At least someone has the right idea.