Honda launched the City and Motocompo together in Japan in 1981. The Motocompo was a small petrol-powered scooter designed to fold down and travel inside the City’s luggage compartment. The two
Open the back of an early Honda CR-V and the cargo area looks ordinary enough. There is room for shopping bags, a muddy pair of boots, perhaps a cooler. Then you lift the floor panel and discover that
You unbuckle, open the door and feel the seat belt brush against your leg. It should have disappeared toward the pillar, but half of it is still hanging beside the seat. Give it a little help and it w
Few automotive features can make a parked car look as alive as pop-up headlights. Turn the switch and two neat sections of bodywork rise from the hood, pause with theatrical precision and reveal the l
There was a time when getting lost required some commitment. A driver would unfold a road map across the steering wheel, locate two towns that appeared to be printed directly on top of one another, th
An engine can be low on oil and sound perfectly content. It may start normally, idle without complaint and carry the car through the morning commute. The driver sees no smoke, hears no knocking and re
The old battery has been replaced, the engine starts with renewed enthusiasm and the dashboard clock has been corrected. Then the driver’s window develops amnesia. It still moves when the swi
The parking brake has been released, but the red warning light remains on. The first reaction is usually to pull the lever again or press the parking-brake switch a few times. Perhaps the sensor
The tire-pressure warning light is not one of the dashboard’s more mysterious creations. It looks like a sagging tire with an exclamation mark inside, which is a fairly direct way of saying, &ld
There is no graceful way to discover how ABS feels for the first time. Something enters the road. The brake pedal goes down hard. Then, at precisely the moment when calm would be useful, the pedal beg