The Tokyo Auto Salon is an annual show that showcases aftermarket parts and technology displays think of it as SEMA but with taste, and also with parts well likely never see in North America.This year (or, rather, next year) Honda will be bringing an upgraded S2000 sports car to the Salon to celebrate the models 20th anniversary, but be warned the car comes with a few tweaks to bring it into the 21st century.This particular car started life as an AP1-generation S2000, to which a new front bumper was added, along with side skirts, more prominent fenders and a rear spoiler. Only one teaser image of the upgraded vehicle has been released, but it does show off the new front fascia, which kind of makes it look like a Renault Alpine. We can see the splitter is now a little lower, and there are also side skirts to give the vehicle a lower appearance.Honda said the S2000 is also sporting a new suspension system, as well as an upgraded stereo. A set of 17-inch Advan RZ2 wheels adorn the sports car, and the windshield frame has been painted black and made thinner to give the car a more sleek appearance.The sun visors and rearview mirror also appear to have been deleted, and the outside mirror caps have been darkened, too. Could this perhaps be a speedster concept? Well have to wait until January to find out.Honda has brought a modified S2000 to the Auto Salon before in the form of the S2000 Modulo Climax, in 2013. It featured a chrome front bumper that echoed the eyebrow styling of current Hondas, as well as a custom red paint
Origin: Honda’s readying new S2000 kit to celebrate the sports car’s 20th anniversary
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News Roundup: Consumer Reports’ most and least reliable, Honda’s many CR-V options and police pull over the weirdest cars
2019 Lexus LS 500Handout Welcome to our weekly round-up of the biggest breaking stories on Driving.ca from this past week. Get caught up and ready to get on with the weekend, because it’s hard keeping pace in a digital traffic jam.Here’s what you missed while you were away.2019’s most and least reliable brands according to Consumer Reports 2019 Mazda CX-5 Signature Al Charest / Postmedia Breaking news! Dodge has landed itself on the top ten list of Consumer Reports’ most reliable brands! That’s a first. Otherwise, the list was not so surprising, with Japan sweeping the top three (Lexus, Mazda and Toyota in that order) and Jeep, VW and Acura elbowing each other for position down at the bottom of the pile. Where does your brand land on the list this year?Anyone want to buy a $90k Corvette for $145,500 on eBay?A selfish Corvette buyer is fishing for suckers online with an ad for a build slot for a 2020 C8 Corvette. The listing is asking for $145,500 for what is, if you were to purchase it directly from the brand, a $90,000 car. Listed as ““BRAND NEW C-8 2020 CORVETTE FOR SALE ALLOCATED PAID FOR 1ST WAVE EARLY RELEASE,” the car is basically just a standard 1LT trim C8 with the free white paint, free silver wheels, $100 mirrors, US$5,000 Z51 package and less than $10,000 worth of other options. Do the math. Don’t buy the car. Honda’s CR-V gets lots of new options for 2020Honda has freshened up its popular SUV for 2020, giving shoppers even more options for trims and some new options like Remote Engine Start and heated front seats at the base level of the CR-V. The exterior gets a bit of a facelift, too, with some Civic-esque tweaks, two new colour options and 19-inch wheels. All models will run with a 1.5-litre turbo four. Pricing starts at $28,690 for the base model, which is exactly $1,000 more than last year’s. These are the strangest vehicles to ever be pulled over by policeAn electric three-wheeler homemade from balsa wood and duct tape. A couch on wheels capable of travelling over 140 km/h. A bumper car with another bumper car being pulled beside it, armstrong-style. These are a few of the most surprising vehicles to get pulled over by police. The couch got a ticket, but balsa-wood trike did not. Check out the full list here. Gone in 60 Seconds ‘Eleanor’ Mustang likely to fetch over US$1 million at auctionThe “Dream Car,” or the main ride of the 11 Mustangs used in the 2000 Nicolas Cage film Gone in 60 Seconds, is scheduled to head to auction in January 2020. And based on the sale of the last, less-of-a-star ‘Eleanor’ Mustang, which sold for US$1 million, this Shelby-inspired 1967 Ford will likely fetch more than the sum of the entire film budget of the original 1974 cut of the film. The movie car will go under the hammer at the Mecum auction in Kissimmee, Florida in January 2020. LISTEN: Toyota has led the hybrid charge for two decades, and as Toyota Canada’s Stephen Beatty tells Plugged In host Andrew McCredie, is now all-in on EVs, particularly fuel cell vehicles. The company’s vice president also has some interesting things to say about some provinces’ push to create electric vehicle sales quotas for 2030, and tells us about Toyota’s fascinating, and potentially game-changing, work with Quebec to produce green hydrogen. Plugged In is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts.Is the player not working? Click
Origin: News Roundup: Consumer Reports’ most and least reliable, Honda’s many CR-V options and police pull over the weirdest cars
Honda’s smallest compact may not be coming back to Canada
Honda teases image of next generation 2020 Fit (Jazz)Honda Hondas teasing the next generation of the Fit ahead of its debut at the 2019 Tokyo Auto Show, but this time it really is a tease, since odds are the vehicle wont make its way to North America.Automotive News noticed Hondas press release for the Fit referred to it only by its European name, Jazz, and said it would be offered only with a hybrid powertrain.Honda is ramping up its efforts to make low-emissions vehicles in Europe, in order to follow its directive of a 100-per-cent electrified lineup there for 2025.When we reached out to Honda Canada, we were told they would not comment on future vehicles at this time. Hondas American arm similarly wouldnt confirm the car, suggesting the States wont be getting it; that make it seem unlikely well get it either. If the Fit does leave the North American market, Honda will likely close its plant in Mexico, saving the company its import tariffs.Even though we likely wont get it, we might as well mention the vehicles looks. A more round and traditional shape takes over for the angular styling weve seen all around the automotive world, and the front and rear of the vehicle have been made stubbier and more vertical, making it easier to park and drive for Europeans.The vehicle has fallen out of favour with Americans, with sales dropping 17 per cent through to September, another reason we can see its demise here making sense. In August, sales of the Fit in Canada were half what they were January, at 206 cars versus
Origin: Honda’s smallest compact may not be coming back to Canada
News Roundup: Honda’s life-saving new airbag, VW’s sexist ad and more
Hondas next-generation airbagHonda Welcome to our weekly round-up of the biggest breaking stories on Driving.ca from this past week. Get caught up and ready to get on with the weekend, because it’s hard keeping pace in a digital traffic jam.Here’s what you missed while you were away.Honda’s reinvention of the passenger side airbag will save lives Honda’s next-generation passenger front airbag design Honda Honda has partnered with auto safety supplier Autoliv to develop a new kind of passenger side airbag that has the potential to reduce the number and severity of injuries and save lives. Over the last four years, the collaboration piece conceived an airbag with three separate chambers instead of one, and a piece of fabric that bridges them in front like a sail, adding “uninflated volume” and helping to reduce blunt force of impact. Honda says it will debut the next-gen airbags in select models by 2020. U.K. bans VW ad for promoting gender stereotypesIn yet another ‘c’mon VW, you’re better than that’ moment, the German automaker has received a slap on the wrist from advertising authorities in the U.K. for airing an ad that harmfully portrayed gender stereotypes. And, yeah, it’s pretty bad. The men are doing things like floating in a spaceship, leaping across a long jump pit with a prosthetic leg, while the female characters make sandwiches, do laundry and take the baby to the park. Ouch. We’ve said it before and will probably say it again: do better, VW. VW recalls 117,000 cars in Canada over rollaway riskCloser to home, Volkswagen is recalling over a hundred thousand cars in Canada that may be at risk of rolling away unexpectedly. The brand explained that the issue is caused by silicate that builds up on a shift lever switch which then allows the key to be slid out even if the car isn’t in park. So, you park your Jetta on a slight incline up the street from the farmer’s market, get out with your reusable shopping bags and then watch as the car rolls backwards into the organic corn stall. The recall, which also hits some 670,000 vehicles in the U.S., includes a number of Jettas, Golfs, GTIs and Beetles. Dealers can simply add a switch and circuit board to solve the issue, but you’ll still be eating corn for weeks. 15-year-old vanity plate with ‘pee joke’ causes ruckus at the DMVHow do you make the New Hampshire motor vehicle department laugh in 2019? Tell them a joke in 2004. A Rochester woman had her vanity plates pulled by the issuing authorities earlier this year, even though she’d already been using them for 15 years. The seven-character message in question: PB4WEG0. It’s clever, family-friendly and just solid travel advice, but somebody at the DMV didn’t think so. Luckily, the New Hampshire governor read about her pee-pun plight and intervened on her behalf, so the DMV reissued the plates. Next-gen VW Golf nears production The new Golf – still camouflaged The eighth-generation Golf is entering its final phases of testing, says Volkswagen. The brand teased the hot hatch with an image of a test mule draped in camo. Close inspection reveals modified headlights, a more tapered profile and a few other hints at the sort of tech that’ll be packed into it. VW promises it’ll be a “genuine eye catcher” as well as a “digital, intelligent and connected” creature, but we’ll have to wait until fall to determine how right or wrong they
Origin: News Roundup: Honda’s life-saving new airbag, VW’s sexist ad and more
Honda’s Urban EV concept gets a real name: ‘e’
Name of Honda’s urban electric car confirmed: ‘Honda e’Honda Honda’s small Urban EV concept with throwback styling caught the attention of just about everybody when it was revealed at the Geneva auto show a couple years back, and Honda has just announced the production model’s name: Honda e. A simple name for a simple car. The Honda e gained a lot of love for its resemblance to the original Honda CVCC (the car later rebadged Civic) and will surely get a lot of love for what it can offer, as well. Honda says, for example, the e will deliver over 200 km of range, and that the battery cells supplied by Panasonic will fast-charge to 80 per cent in just 30 minutes. The e will also be rear-wheel-drive, so it might actually be quite sporty. Honda decided to build the vehicle after over 22,000 customers in Europe expressed interest in buying it, showing there would probably be a good market for small EVs for urban areas. The e will be a great addition to Honda’s vision of electrifying its entire lineup by 2025. Honda’s Electric Vision, renewed and emboldened at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show, is for 100 per cent of the brand’s European sales to feature electrified powertrains by 2025, the automaker said in a release. The Honda e, presented as a production prototype in Geneva, is Honda’s first model to benefit from a dedicated EV platform and takes a bold step with its design and technology. The compact electric car offers trademark Honda driving dynamics, aided by the sporty rear-wheel-drive format and advanced electric powertrain. Production and sales of the Honda e will hopefully start later in 2019, and we sincerely hope that Honda finds a way to make the e available in
Origin: Honda’s Urban EV concept gets a real name: ‘e’
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