Castrol Syntec Top Car Challenge - Four One One

Smaller Engines,
Cars Grow Among General Public
According to a SEMA survey of new cars sold in the U.S. over the 2007-2008 model year, compact cars presented the largest shares of market growth, with four-cylinder-equipped models out-pacing those powered by six-and eight-cylinder engines nearly three to one. Conventional platforms (Civic, Corolla, etc.) topped the list, followed closely by B-segments (Yaris, Fit, etc.), signifying that the shift in sales is occurring mainly by the mainstream consumer, not those of us buying STIs and EVOs; sales of "sport" models dipped slightly. The biggest losers: Light-duty pickups, vans and large domestic sedans, followed closely by luxury platforms and SUVs. Remember us in a few years when mom hands you down that Fit instead of the 350Z you really wanted--it might not be as fast, but building it to be faster is half the fun, right?
www.sema.org/research

Kia
Stop/Start Engines
European buyers of a Kia B-segment city car, called the Cee'd, will be the first to get the company's latest fuel-saving innovation: an automatic feature that shuts the car's engine off when idling at a stop in neutral, then restarts it with a shift back into First gear. If all goes well, the start-stop technology will be available worldwide by 2010.
www.kia.com

Roots
1982 Honda City Turbo
Honda's First Turbocharged Car Spools Into Production
Far and wide, journalists are a stubborn and passive lot. Though we praise ourselves on objectivity and impartiality, we all have a point to prove and writing about them--as opposed to arguing them in person--allows the luxuries of research and indefinite revision; ideally, the opportunity for our points to appear as undisputable truths once they're published. But even then, we still make mistakes. Take, for example, when Honda announced the production of the Acura RDX, and its turbocharged K23A1 engine, a vehicle that many top-tier automotive journalists erroneously hailed as "Honda's first turbocharged engine" (Google the phrase and see what we mean). Apparently, they forgot about this little guy, the '82 Honda City Turbo, and its 1.2 L turbocharged CVCC engine; the rightful owner to the title... and the one we named as such in our Jan '08 issue's RDX Power Pages article. Just sayin'...

Typical of any son prone to suping up dad's cars, the City Turbo was a creation of Hirotoshi Honda, son of Honda founder Soichiro Honda. While dad was busy building motorcycles and economical commuter cars like the City (and before it, the Life, Z360 and N600), young Hiro was running a small tuning company called Mugen; boosting the performance of Honda's motorcycles, and winning races with them. Once Hiro turned his focus to cars, inspiring the creation of the City Turbo, and later, bolt-on turbo upgrades for the CRX, the rest would be history.