2011 CR-Z impressions

[luvmyhondas]

Well, for those of you that have me on Facebook you may have seen that I was at the 2011 CR-Z ride and drive yesterday. I went in with a little bit of concern of the 'sport' aspect of this supposed sport hybrid that is soon to land at the dealerships. Here's a short version of what I came away with.

1. The specs do not really illustrate the level of performance that this car has. It's not blindingly fast by any means, but then again none of the SOHC Hondas are screamers when bone stock. I got to drive the car on a SCCA style cone course. They even had a competition for who could achieve the highest exit speed through the slolam.

2. 6 Speed manual...in a hybrid!? Yup, and it feels pretty good. Throws aren't overly long and the gearbox feels genuinely 'Honda'.

3. The ride is nice. 16" wheels look pretty darn good too.

4. Available with OEM HID lighting! EX and EX Navi come standard with HID and the Navi gets foglights too.

5. IT'S NOT A 2 DOOR INSIGHT!

6. Looks great with the factory accessory front lip, side strakes, and rear diffuser.

7. I want one.

pics that I took throughout the day are here:
edited since folks were complaining about the link.

I can't stand the suspense!

Ahhhhh, that's better.

another shot




these will actually illuminate!

the parking lot and course we got to flog the cars on.

[budget_crx]

I guess I'll just add my input to this thread as well. lol
I have been excited about this car since I first started working at the dealership and it was still a concept so going in my exceptions were pretty high. My first time seeing driving one was Wednesday when one of the ride and drive cars got dropped off at our dealer. The first impression was very good, I can't stress enough that these cars really look better in person than they do in all the stills you see. I don't know if its the angles or what, but they look much hotter in real life. As far as driving goes its not as big of a turd as you would think it would be. I would say straight line it would be about as fast as a base model 140hp Civic, nothing to go crazy over but A LOT faster than any other Hybrid I have ever driven (especially the Insight).

I was really curious how these would hold up on a racetrack so I was really looking forward to the autoX course on Friday. Bescally all I focused on was how well the car would do in a motorsport situation since thats all fairly new o the hybrid world.
They allowed us to do the course in both normal and sport mode to feel the difference since Sport mode supposedly changes the steering feel and the throttle response. Here was my rundown of the times I drove the course:

1. CVT in Normal mode: Car did ok, Both the car and steering is very light.

2. 6MT in Sport mode: The course wasn't in harmony with the gearing, but that isn't the car fault. The car's steering did have a noticeable difference, it felt "heavier" and more controlable

3. CVT in Sport mode: From here on out you couldn't even tell the car was a hybrid anymore. Too me the CVT seems more suited for autocross since the ecu keeps revs higher when in sport mode, allowing you to be in the power band more often.

4. CVT in Sport mode: This was the first time I actually used the paddle shifters (I always hate those things). Again the car stayed in the power band the entire time the only weakness now was the horrible tires....

I asked the instructors there about the battery and the charging system since it would take a good amount of abuse on a road course. They basically told me that through the observations of all the abuse that went on at the ride and drive event that the cars would have no problem at an autocross meet. There theory was if it could handle all the hard driving from this event, it would have no problem tackling a day of autocross. As for an actual road course, I don't believe the short heavy braking would be enough to recharge the batteries from the drain of acceleration. The hybrids prefer long slow braking to get the most recharge power. Which makes me curious how the Japanese are pulling it off, unless they only use the electric motor the first few laps lol.


CLIFFS:
In general the car was a ton of fun. It is good looking, it feels light and nimble and gets great gas mileage. I would say this would be a perfect DD that you could still have fun with on the weekends.

[luvmyhondas]

did you go to the morning or afternoon session?

and did you try the "LOW" mode on the CVT in Sport? It was quite a runner in that mode for that short little course.

[budget_crx]

I was in the afternoon session. I pulled back on the paddle shifters but I didn't notice the little L so I don't know if I was in it or not.

[luvmyhondas]

what color/group were you in? I was in Green3.

You had to select D, then Sport, then hold both paddles for 6 seconds...then the L showed up where the gear number would be if in Sport mode using paddles.

[budget_crx]

Team 4, I don't remember what color I was because I had to turn in my tag at the end since we won the competition.

[luvmyhondas]

it was either Green or Yellow. Either way, I was just wondering if we possibly were in the same group, but no. I had some dipshit from KC in my group that half of the team kept listening to. Next time there's a R&D I'll have to look you up.

btw added IMG tags instead of the link.

[Liquor Assassin]

read about spoon's cr-z they built in road and track a month or two ago, dropped over 5 seconds per lap from the stock version, i really like this car and would love to have one... im interested to see how the aftermarket will treat these

[budget_crx]

The aftermarket support has been awesome so far, which just added to my excitement!

[gotrice]

Whats the MSRP on one of these bad boys?