Driving Impressions

Vehicle Dynamics International drives many of the latest vehicles on the market, and you can read our subjective impressions of the cars here!

Most of the cars we drive are standard production vehicles driven on our regular public road test routes near the VDI office in Surrey, UK. This provides a more controlled test environment and enables us to make more valid comparisons between models. If a car was tested elsewhere, or the vehicle was not a final production model, this is stated at the top of the relevant review.

Latest Test Drive: Honda CR-Z

Phrases like “the world’s first hybrid sports car” raise fears of a horribly compromised vehicle that’s more about marketing than substance. We’re happy to report that this absolutely is not the case for the Honda CR-Z. In fact, it’s a very, very good car.

When we spoke to the vehicle’s chief engineer, Norio Tomobe earlier this year, there were clear signs that Honda had taken the job of creating a sporting hybrid very seriously, and this is borne out by the end result. Tomobe-san spoke of the care that had gone into the driving position and in particular the hip point and accelerator pedal point; we think his team has got the driving position spot-on, and there’s a real sense of the CR-Z pivoting around you in proper sports car fashion.

Once you get under way, the driving experience is far better than pretty much any recent Honda we can think of, let alone the Insight, with which it shares some of its structure. One wonders how the Insight was made to ride so badly (though we’re told it has recently been improved), such is the CR-Z’s super-compliant low-speed secondary ride. No doubt the torsionally stiffer shell and unsprung mass reductions play their part, but whatever the reason, the isolation is very good and there is no trace of early Insights’ trademark rear-end crashiness.

In the CR-Z, that battery-derived rear-end mass has been made to contribute to some nicely judged handling balance. If anything, the car could do with a little more control of vertical movements at speed, but we’d rather have a trace of sponginess there than a pointlessly hard ride under all conditions.

Another revelation is the steering. The hard work by ‘Meister’ test driver Furuhashi-san and others has resulted in good feel from the NSK EPS, no Jazz-style sloppiness around the straight-ahead, and appropriate weight for a small, ‘sporty’ car (it weights up a little more in Sport mode). The result is a zippy little coupe that’s entertaining when you want it to be.

The CR-Z is not a particularly fast car by modern standards, but that’s not really a criticism. In Sport mode, the 124PS, 1.5-liter petrol engine/IMA combo gives just enough oomph to justify the ‘sports car’ tag and the electric motor helps give the car 174Nm of torque from just 1,000rpm). But it still returns decent economy – we got 43mph when driving it hard, and 55mpg when cruising around in Economy mode, which blunts the throttle response considerably and keeps some of the available IMA power locked away.

Inside, the driver-focused cabin is simple but functional. All the major driving and comfort controls are simple to find and easy to use, while the six-speed manual’s gearshift is up to Honda’s usual high standards. There’s not much space for rear-seat passengers and child seats don’t fit well at all, despite the availability of fixing points. There’s limited luggage space under the sloping tailgate. As in the Insight, a solid horizontal bar where the tailgate turns downwards ruins the rear visibility – probably the CR-Z’s single biggest flaw.

Overall however, we think this is Honda’s best car for some considerable time. During development, the firm consciously tried to evoke the spirit of the 1980s CRX. With its small dimensions and accessible but not excessive performance, one could argue that the CR-Z is also reminiscent of small, affordable sports cars from an even earlier age. Adding that old-school driver appeal to 21st Century eco technology makes the CR-Z fun to drive but sensible, too, and well suited to modern driving conditions.

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