Honda Jazz Hybrid (thumbs up) / American Honda (thumbs down)

Why would they want to sell it in the US? I've heard fuel prices are dropping on your side of the pond and as such Joe Public will be rushing back to buy 6 litre SUV's before you can say Rumplestiltskin!

Tell me I'm wrong

 

you're right.


it seems most americans can only see up to 2 weeks ahead in their life.

 

What I was meaning was, for how long will these economical subcompacts continue to be sold now fuel costs are falling? Will the manufacturers stop production or importing these vehicles if fuel becomes cheap again.

They did it in the 1970's as I believe the Fiesta was imported back then to the USA when fuel was expensive and then dropped when costs fell. Thirty years later you're getting it back again.

Also, how does Canada fare here? Your fuel costs are somewhere between Europe and the USA, yet your cars are more biased towards US models. Surely it would make sense to purchase more European or smaller cars? Or is that the case already? Will the Fiesta and the like hit it off in Canada?

 

GM's 'chevette' either by design or accident made that true. The USA car makers produced a bunch of crappy small cars in the 70s and 80s and poisoned the well for USA built. So they made a market for Toyota and the rest is history.

Bob Wilson

 

What was wrong with the Chevette? OK it was a little ugly but they sold well (Europeanised) over here for a while as a Vauxhall.

Looking at the specs of your Chevy Chevette it appears to me to be quite ahead of its time for a fuel efficient car. A 1400cc or 1600cc engine with manual or auto transmissions and fuel economy of 40 mpg! I just think they flogged the design to death as the UK Chevette discontinued in 1984 and I remember as a kid thinking it old fashioned by then.

Still an ugly car though.

 

The short list:

• 30k miles/clutch - no I do not nor have ever ridden the clutch. It was undersized.
• insufficient leg room - I was always cramped.
• seats by d'Sade - after an hour or so, legs would go numb. If you didn't take a break, cramps would follow.
• steering was by random - you had to drive it all the time, worse than the early Prius.
• noise - well above 45 mph, I couldn't hear my wife's complaints if she had a sore throat . . . from complaining.
• brakes - eventually and somewhere.
• structural integrity - do you have aluminum cans? Put a designed crease in an aluminum can . . . that is how solid it felt.
• above 65 mph - the car would make such a racket that if I was trying to nap in the passenger seat it would wake me up and I would ask the wife to slow down.
• safety - HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
• heating - roast the front and freeze the rear
• cooling - HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
• road response - as good as the steering if the compression forces didn't hurt the back
• paint color (green) - you are right, UGLY!

My favorite Chevette story:

My wife had a tendancy to lug the small, high rpm engine so I told her to use the 'red marks' on the speedometer to change gears. So one day, she wanted to change to a lower gear and sped up to the little red marks, downshifted . . . in a speed trap.

She went to court and told them that "My husband said if I wanted to shift into 4th gear, I had to be going fast enough for the little red marks so I sped up."

The court erupted in laughter and the Judge said, "Say what?" The cops joined in, "Yes Sir Your Honor, that is what she told us!"

The Judge wiping a tear from his eye said, "Mrs. Wilson, I wish your husband were here today. Case dismissed!"
​

We took that little car to Huntsville Alabama and my wife constantly complained that the Huntsville train (a switching engine that moves individual box cars around to different companies) didn't run fast enough to hit the car.

One day at Airport Road, she was following a pickup truck with an I-beam rear bumper. But the pickup driver spied a cop car and stopped instead of running the red light. She didn't stop fast enough so the pickup truck bumper decapitated the radiator and crumpled the hood. She got out and after looking at the car began to dance and sing 'The car is dead! The car is dead!' much to the confusion of the pickup truck driver who suffered no damaged but now had a green smear to his rusty, well worn, I-beam bumper.

I got down there to look at the damage car and obviously my wife was still in a good mood. So I looked it over and said,"I don't know, maybe $50 and we can get it back on the road."

If looks could kill I would not be writing this note today.

We sent the car to the salvage where it was probably melted down to make weak, inferior cans for marginal food products sold to unsuspecting poor people.

Bob Wilson

 

Awesome story, Bob! You should submit it to Car Talk!

 

Cheers Tideland, that answered my question very nicely.

 

Actually the whole Japan Inc. joined by Korea Corp and the EU Association. <grins>

Yesterday I saw one at the Toyota dealership and that is a much better description.

Bob Wilson