Honda Crx Specifications

2011 Honda CR-Z Hybrid Review, Price And Specs | Id car, car ...

The CR-Z hybrid is based off the Insight, which isn’t exactly a promising start as far as sportiness is concerned. Honda assures us this wasn’t just a copy-cut-paste job: the wheelbase is 4.5 inches shorter than the bread and butter hybrid, and the car itself is shorter by some 8 inches and also considerably wider and lower.

It’s tempting to think of the CR-Z hybrid as the second coming of the CRX , Honda ’s light, tossable mid-1980s funster, what with the two cars’ stubby rear ends, two-seat layouts, and frugal intentions. At the CR-Z launch , in fact, Honda plopped us down in a cherry 1985 CRX Si and told us to go nuts. We did, and we’re sorry, Big H, but the CR-Z just isn’t quite as awesome.

The first thing you notice when you sit down in the CR-Z hybrid is how close your behind is to the ground. You sit very low in here. Properly low. Female companions are thus advised to avoid wearing skirts if riding shotgun. There are even more prices to be paid for the wowing exterior design: space. Front passengers will feel pretty intimate (if not claustrophobic), storage spaces are scarce, and my European-spec tester’s rear seats will make even grocery complain about headroom. Fortunately, American car journalists will be spared this rant: US-spec cars will come with the rear bench deleted in favor of extra storage space.

At 160.6 inches long, the CR-Z is 16 inches longer than the original CRX, but it doesn’t look like that much with the two cars side by side; for modern reference, the CR-Z is an inch shorter than Honda’s own Fit. It’s not as light, however, with Honda estimates putting the CR-Z around 2700 pounds. We measured the bigger Fit at 2500 pounds with a manual, and a CRX Si we tested 25 years ago weighed in at a svelte 1840. Of course, beyond the hybrid system, the CR-Z includes a boatload of stuff unavailable on the original CRX: airbags, a couple of decades’ worth of crash-worthiness improvements, and doors thicker than a Trapper Keeper, to mention a few. Still, from behind the wheel, you never shake the sense of extra weight.

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