Classic & Sports Car - December 2015 UK

P

erhapsas a kindof atonementfor all

the noxious,barely-into-double-

figuresbargesthat I havedrivenover

the past30 years,recentlyI have

foundmyselfbehindthe wheelof a

70mpgHondaInsight. Don’t worry, I haven’t

purchasedit withmy ownmoney– I’m just

‘lookingafter’the poorthingfor a friend.

Saidpal has becomeso hookedon these

pioneerhybridsthat he boughta secondone on

a whimand askedme if I couldsell his original

grey one. No problem– you can’t havetoo many

reliablecars aroundyou, is whatI say.

All I knewaboutthe Insight(I keepwantingto

call it the incest)was that it was rarerand nicer

thanthe appallingTo yotaPious,andhad

recentlygonedownthe ownershipfoodchain

fromrich hippiesto computergeeks.The owner

of this car is neitherof those,so I was intrigued

as to why he ratedit so highly.

At first,I ignoredthe thing,usingit only

whenmy LanciaGammadied(again)and I

couldn’t be botheredto get anotherbargeout

of the shed.Then,on my shortcommute,a

mildinterestin this oddityof a vehiclebeganto

develop.Thatturnedintoa bond,and slowly

Ibeganto favourthe Hondaoverothercars.

Not simplyfor the economy(whichis refresh-

ing – you can drive around seemingly for weeks

on £40 worthof juice)but also for the way the

thingdrives.It is genuinelygoodfun.

You can convince

yourselfthat its three-

cylinderenginehas

the throatytimbreof

an NSXwhilerevel-

ling in handling that

I findastonishingly

good.I shouldproba-

bly qualifythatby

sayingthat I drivea lot of old cars that owners

of modernswouldfind unbelievablybad, so my

pointof comparisonis quitelow.

Whilenot exactlyfast,the 1-litre,67bhp

Insightis by no meansslow.Its performance–the

batterybehindthe seatsbooststhe enginesome-

whatin the mannerof a turbo– feelsakin to one

of my old LanciaFlavia 2000 coupés,whichjust

showswhatyoucando witha low-drag

shape(0.25Cd)and extremeweight-saving.

Were it not for the crunchysynchromeshon

COMMENT

Martin

BACKFIRE

December 2015 Classic& SportsCar 39

this one,the gearbox

wouldbe a slick-shift-

ing delight.It allows

hugemaximain the

intermediates–70mph

in secondif you take it

to the redline– and the

‘triple’smoothsout so

muchthat you needto

takenoticeof the

arrowson the dashand

changeup beforeyou

thinkyou should.

Aroundtown,the

enginecuts itselfwhen

you are standingstill

and automaticallyfires

up – almostinstantly–

whenyou selectfirst,a

processthat occasionallycatchesyou out. On

openroadsit will sit at highspeedall day if you

like, but the real pointof the Insightis to get the

rechargingsystemworkingfor you.You don’t

want to let the battery run down too much, so

the tendencyis to ease off to the pointwherethe

greenlightskick-inon theBuckRogersdigital

dashboard– the aesthetichighpointof a pared-

downinteriorthat is otherwisea bit drab.

In contrast,the body– a lightweightmixture

of aluminiumand plastic– lookslike a cross

betweena Le MansPanhardand a propfrom

Logan’s Run.I suppose

I shouldn’t havebeen

surprised by the

amountof attentionit

gets(aboutequally

splitbetweenpositive

andnegative)but,

interestingly, eventhe

“Whatis it, mate?”

contingentseemto instinctivelyknowthat it is

somemannerof electricvehicle.Othersregu-

larlytake it to be an obscureCitroën.

It was only when I began swotting up on these

first-generationInsightsthatI realisedhow

specialtheyare.In the mannerof NSU’s

WankelSpider, the car was a testbedfor new

technologyand was developedwithoutbudget

limitations:it didn’t matterwhatit cost,it had to

be right.Thus,evenat £17,000apiece,Honda

lost shedloadsof moneyon eachone it sold.

Buckley

‘The lightweightbody

lookslike a crossbetween

a Le MansPanhardanda

propfromLogan’s Run’

Productionran from1999-’06,withjust

17,000salesworldwide– but I doubtits maker

was particularly fussed. It had madeits pointand

donethe groundworkfor subsequent,more

mainstreamhybrids,as well as showingthat eco

vehiclesdon’t needto be dull.I was shockedto

find that only239 Mk1sweresoldin the UK,

though.No wonderso few peoplehaveseen one.

It’s hardto find a flaw in the Insight,as longas

you accept the limitations of onlytwo seatsplus a

slightlyjigglyride.I haven’t likeda Japanesecar

this much since my Nissan Cedric estate, which

was a lot less eco-friendlybut cost me only £100.

Or it mightevenhavebeena freebie.I don’t

remember, but my feeling is that most of the

JapanesecarsI’ve ownedhavebeendonated

ratherthanboughtwithreal money. CouldI

generate£3000worthof enthusiasmto buy this

one?Possibly,but not just at the moment.

Paintit blue and the Mk1Insightcouldbe a contenderfor the Index of ThermalEfficiency

Space-ageinstrumentpanelgives the cabina welcomelift