2003 Honda Element in Whittier

Half Moon Bay, California—
Honda hopes its boxy Element sport-utility vehicle will attract the post-collegiate, pre-employed, high-spending Gen-Yers everybody's been courting for the last decade, buyers Honda feels are inadequately served by its current lineup. Unlike the femme-y CR-V or even the latest, softened Civic, the Element is gender-specific, going after young active males unremittingly, sort of like an all-wheel-drive Bruce Weber.

In the hands of another automaker, a marketing-led exercise such as the Element could have gone horribly wrong. A less engineering-driven company might have tried to snare the mythical twenty-two-year-old single male by slapping some cladding and bungee cords on its minivan/wagon/SUV and calling it the ultimate active-lifestyle accessory. It would have resulted in a more cynical vehicle, one that merely styled its way to the automotive endless summer, where all the dudes surf, all the chickies are blond, and everybody's abs are ripped.

For all its uncharacteristic risk taking (new vehicle category, new development strategy, new engineering solutions), Honda has created another great Honda, featuring unexpected packaging, materials, and visuals. It also offers an unexpectedly solid driving experience.

Despite using the CR-V's basic drivetrain and platform (2.4-liter i-VTEC four-cylinder engine, on-demand four-wheel-drive system), the Element comes off like the anti-CR-V. The CR-V looks positively frumpy next to the baby-G-wagen edges of the Element. "Its uniqueness," says its principal engineer, Art St. Cyr, "comes from its flat load floor, its clamshell tailgate, and its B-pillarless side openings, and we made all our engineering decisions around preserving those features.... Read full article