GTP Cool Wall: 2010+ Honda CR-Z

[Wiegert]

2010+ Honda CR-Z nominated by @Naveek Darkroom

Body Styles: 3-door hatchback
Engines: 1.5L I4 (Honda LEA) + DC electric motor
Power: 122 hp
Torque: 128 lb-ft.
Weight: 1211-1236 kg
Transmission: 6-speed manual, CVT
Drivetrain: Front engine, front wheel drive​

Spoiler: Additional Pics

 

[el fayce]

I like the way it looks to be honest, But I feel like it wasn't a hybrid from the get go.

 

[AudiMan2011]

If it had a bit more performance, it would've been a low Cool, plus having a manual in a hybrid negates the stigma a bit. It could've been so much more for it to be a proper successor to the old CR-X.

Meh.

 

[Epic B]

If it had a bit more performance, it would've been a low Cool, plus having a manual in a hybrid negates the stigma a bit. It could've been so much more for it to be a proper successor to the old CR-X.

Meh.

Yeah, I agree. If they were looking for a spiritual successor to the CR-X, a hybrid wasn't the way to go. What I think they should have done is just put in the Civic Si engine or something. This car with the Civic Si engine and no hybrid gear could have been good. Hopefully they do something like that with the next CR-Z.

 

[homeforsummer]

Cool. Looks good, has a modern vibe without being whacky, fun to drive. Bit more interesting than most equivalents.

---

I wouldn't personally say it needed more power, rather less weight. Low weight is one of the key attributes of the similar first-gen Insight (along with better aerodynamics and lean-burn) that makes that car so efficient without being dull to drive.

The hybrid tech in the CR-Z can effectively be ignored - it's not there to boost performance, so much as give it more performance than it would have if it were just a bog-standard 1.5-litre for economy reasons.

That it has only average performance is because it weighs 1200kg+, rather than the ~850kg of the Insight. That's way too much for a car of that size (though it's undoubtedly a quality product).

Anything under 1000kg should have been the target with the CR-Z - at that, the 1.5/hybrid setup would be fairly peppy. My last editor drove a CFRP prototype CR-Z, 30% lighter than the standard car, which improved performance 30% and economy 20% with no other changes. Of course, with low weight you can improve the ride and handling too, which isn't a given by just dropping in a more powerful engine. Not least because more power requires bigger heavier brakes, beefier heavier suspension etc.

 

[Roger the Horse]

Just a small Honda hatchback, but it has nice styling and you don't see many around. When I see one I usually go "ooh, one of those."

 

[Dagger311]

SU.

 

[LivingWithGames]

Looks great, it's a hybrid though.

But, saw it can have manual. Hmmmmm.

I'll go with Meh. Balanced it all out.

 

[Adamgp]

Eww.

SU.

 

[Frenzyhero]

edit

 

[Roger the Horse]

To everyone complaining about this car's performance, may I remind them that the average person on the high street is more likely to look at this and think "ooh, that's an unusual and stylish car" (if they do indeed notice it) and probably appreciate the fact that it is quiet and not typically driven by yobos far more than they would appreciate any performance it might have if they drove one.

Not to say it shouldn't have more or less performance. Not to say driving well and going fast* is a bad thing, or that this car isn't underwhelming in those regards and shouldn't do any better. And definitely not to say that this car couldn't be considerably better if it were a couple of hundred kilos lighter.

Just to say that it often seems to me that this is a car judged (by car enthusiasts, as I say Jack and Jill don't care about performance or specs at all when their neighbour Fiona buys one) by the standards of what people want it to be rather than what it is.

Compare this to the Citroën DS3 or the Volvo C30 rather than the Subaru BRZ or the Mazda MX5 and you'll have a much fairer comparison.







*Well, obviously on the high street this is a bad thing, but that's a different matter.

 

[Legro]

Sporty, yet not sporty enough to attract knobs. Or maybe that's the fact it's a hybrid.

Either way, it's a stylish compact coupe that you won't often see upside down in ditches or reving ridiculously in the city centre at the middle of the night. Cool.

Compare this to the Citroën DS3 or the Volvo C30

It wouldn't surprise me if the same people found those uncool too for exactly the same reasons.

 

[synchromesh]

Meh for coolness, only hybrid you'd catch me driving though.

 

[Leonidae@MFT]

Mid-Cool. High cool is the supercharged version that is also available. Manual is a plus, as well as the looks.

 

[Tornado]

It could have been a contender. It should have been a contender. Honda had all of the pieces at the ready to make it a contender.


Then they didn't.

Just to say that it often seems to me that this is a car judged (by car enthusiasts, as I say Jack and Jill don't care about performance or specs at all when their neighbour Fiona buys one) by the standards of what people want it to be rather than what it is.

Then Honda shouldn't have tried so hard to pretend that it was what it wasn't when they were selling the damn thing. They didn't style it like that, give it that name, deliberately invite the obvious comparisons and go out of their way to show the inspiration on accident.

 

[Tyger]

I always liked the styling, and extra points from me for its hybrid underpinnings. I find it a little odd that so many people seem to think Hybrid = Uncool. Uncool how? Anyway Cool from me.

 

[homeforsummer]

It could have been a contender. It should have been a contender. Honda had all of the pieces at the ready to make it a contender.

Then they didn't.

While sales have pretty much proven this correct - it's never been very successful outside of Japan - I'd be interested to hear which metric beyond sales you're judging it on.

The two most common things I've heard are "it isn't fast enough" or "it isn't economical enough". Both are fair comment, though both also depend entirely on what it's compared to. It's not as fast as say, a turbocharged hot hatch of similar price, and it's not as economical as say, a Prius.

But then it's more economical than the hot hatch, and significantly more fun than a Prius. It's not as quick as the second-gen CRX, admittedly - but then Honda didn't pitch it as a sports car or hot hatch, more a sporty hybrid.

I dunno. The US market has just seemed unduly harsh on the car to me, and I suspect a great many people who criticise it haven't actually had a go in one.

Honda did get plenty of stuff in the car right - the styling (subjective, obviously), the size, the quality, the gearshift, the steering, the responses (it feels quicker than it looks on paper - probably due to the size), and it's respectably frugal in the real world (I average 50mpg UK / ~41mpg US over the week I had one for).

Still, I have to be thankful that it's not that popular - it should keep used prices down. Used ones aren't far from being quite tempting price-wise over here.

 

[AudiMan2011]

Honda should have really put the supercharged Mugen version into production and not just sell the Mugen cosmetic parts:

 

[Legro]

Honda should have really put the supercharged Mugen version into production and not just sell the Mugen cosmetic parts:

Looks ready for this.

upside down in ditches or reving ridiculously in the city centre at the middle of the night.

Seriously, if that would have made it into production looking like that, this thread would probably be nearly 75% Honda ricing yob jokes.

 

[Skygrasper550]

It's a cute little Honda. And while it's a hybrid, it's much, much, much more appealling that the baneful Prius. I actually got to inspect one during a car showcase in a shopping mall, and it really looks good. I absolutely love the styling, but engine performance is really lacking. Should have had around 160hp, not counting the electric motor. Manual transmission is a huge, huge plus, though.

Gets a high Cool from me.

 

[Casey]

Meh...would like to have seen a non hybrid version made cause they don't look bad at all.

Also the interior reminds me a lot of the Isuzu Pulse interior.

 

[Skygrasper550]

Meh...would like to have seen a non hybrid version made cause they don't look bad at all.

Also the interior reminds me a lot of the Isuzu Pulse interior.

View attachment 457043

I personally don't mind it being a hybrid (I think it's an interesting idea that they made the car as such), but the ICE should have had a bit more punch. C'mon, 112hp for a sports car? That's less, if not equal to, than what the current Mazda MX-5 makes. And the MX-5 is lighter as well. They should have made the ICE generate around 160hp alone, which is clearly possible for a 4-cylinder engine (no need for turbo or supercharger, just stroke the engine to around 1.8 or 2.0L liters), and then add the electric motor's output, and you got yourself a serious but compact performance coupe.

Although, that aside, I would like for the supercharged version to be included in a GT game.

 

[homeforsummer]

C'mon, 112hp for a sports car?

To be fair, the electric motor does bring that up to ~120hp, or ~130hp for the facelifted ones. Hardly a rocketship obviously, but a useful increase.

It's fairly useful for low-end torque too, which is traditionally one of those things that people complain about when it comes to Hondas. It's not a big V8-style wall of torque from low revs, but I'd say it actually picks up quicker than the K20-engined Type R Civics I've driven. Particularly in Sport mode, which gives you more of the electric motor's power at once. Of course, it also means you can trickle along at low revs in a high gear without it labouring too, which is good for economy.

The negative aspect is that because of the small battery this only lasts so long before you're down to just the engine... but again, my vote would be for less weight rather than more power, since that would've been beneficial to everything rather than just straight-line performance.

 

[SVT Cobra GT]

Meh. Looks ok but that's about it.

 

[Sage Ages]

Significantly cooler than the CR-X.



Meh.

 

[Ettick]

Just looked at the first pic and insta SU. Not visually appealing at all.

 

[Tornado]

The two most common things I've heard are "it isn't fast enough" or "it isn't economical enough". Both are fair comment, though both also depend entirely on what it's compared to.

And, on a related note:

The US market has just seemed unduly harsh on the car to me

The car above that sits in the same US Honda showrooms as the CR-Z had the same fundamentally great platform, cost ~$4000 less, was ~150 pounds lighter, was just as fast (if not marginally faster) and perhaps most importantly wasn't available in the cheapo smaller-engined retiree versions sold in Europe and Japan and elsewhere. So why would you get the CR-Z in America instead, and why wouldn't the CR-Z constantly get trashed in comparison? Because of the 2 or 3 MPG better it maybe gets combined in a country with $3.50/gallon gas versus the 30% more you spent on it?


A CR-Z with the base engine from the contemporary USDM Civic hooked up to the same hybrid (or even sans hybrid system entirely to save the weight) probably would have been enough to distance the two, since all of the early tests I remember said that the chassis was good enough to take it, and I'm doubting it would have hurt fuel economy much at all since that engine was a new design made for that Civic to increase fuel efficiency. But they didn't do that, and after specifically inviting direct comparisons from the car rags to the CRX (knowing full well that it had been mythologized similar to 60s muscle cars by that point) it really shouldn't be too surprising that when what they delivered didn't do that it was met with a huge backlash and a preference to a car they already sold that did do a closer job at it. Honda tried to have their cake and eat it too with the CR-Z just like they did with the USDM EP Civic Si, and when they were called on it by Car and Driver and the likes of course it spread like wildfire to people who had no actual experience with it; but that doesn't really make what the magazines said wrong.

 

[niky]

The hybrid system is stupid. Even with the "130 hp" variant, you have to basically spam the Sport+ button to get any performance boost out of the hybrid system. And even with a full battery pack, the performance is such that the rather pedestrian R18 in the Civic would've provided more thrills.

Hell, a Fit does provide more accelerative thrills. And is lighter, to boot.

The ride is needlessly busy. The rear seat is laughably tiny. You might... might... consider forgiving that last part, until you remember that this is based on the Fit chassis, and that's a car with shedloads of rear seat space.

-

But when you drive it... the CR-Z is simply inspired. The Fit may be lighter and faster, but the steering is near-absolute rubbish nowadays. The CR-Z, though... Lovely steering. Lovely balance. Lovely shifter.

And it turns heads like nothing else. People may not be buying it, but the CR-Z makes Hondas cool again.

-

But just barely.

 

[homeforsummer]

Fair point - I'd forgotten Honda sold a more powerful Fit in the States. And I totally agree about the price - it was reasonably priced in the UK until the difference in exchange rates pushed it up way too high - in the space of a few years it went from being a £17k car or thereabouts, to a £21k one.

That said, the CR-Z does actually drive a lot better than the Fit. It's one reason I've always maintained the CR-Z was a good car. The performance figures aren't spectacular, but then they aren't in a Miata either and I like those too. Sometimes the driving experience transcends the numbers. Unfortunately, numbers are all most people have to go on.