Strangely, however, the Honda's interior feels nothing short of cavernous. Like a vintage Mini or an early Volkswagen Beetle, the 145-inch-long CRX makes the best of its modest dimensions. The console-free floor, extensive glass, and thin doors give the interior a stretched-out, airy feel, like a living room without enough furniture in it. The two thin, high-backed seats are comfortable and supportive. Ties to the MTV generation remain - the blue carpet in Baeyen's car is thick enough to be combed with a rake, and there's enough hard, shiny plastic to decorate a McDonald's - but by and large, the CRX's cabin isn't a bad place to be.
The behind-the-wheel experience is surprisingly modern. The CRX's 87-inch (!) wheelbase and jaw-droppingly quick steering let you fling it into corners with abandon; the car rotates so well that it's almost as if the rear wheels are pivoting around your hips.
Torsion bars and struts up front work with a beam axle and a Panhard rod in the rear, and the result is a remarkable level of controllable, predictable grip. A dinky Keihin carburetor and a thick web of vacuum lines and dashpots live under the hood, but they do their work invisibly - the HF's engine exhibits none of the emissions-related stumbles or throttle-response hiccups common to 1980s econoboxes. You flit down a winding road, revving the whee out of the CRX's gutsy four, and it strikes you that few cars on the market today are quite as well-rounded.
Park a 2010 Insight next to the HF, and the family resemblance is obvious. Soichiro Honda may have believed in the power of dreams, as Honda's ad campaign touts, but he was also a pragmatist, and one of his many legacies is that the best Honda products emphasize function over form. In the case of the Insight and the CRX, that means a Kamm-back tail and a long, sloping roofline for minimal drag. (Interestingly, both the original, 2000-2006 Insight and the second-generation 1988-1991 CRX had the same basic shape.) But both cars also have noncosmetic things in common. Like most Honda vehicles, they boast comfortable, practical interiors and densely packaged but well-thought-out engine compartments. There's a distinct logic at work in each, an innate comprehension of the fact that both the CRX and the Insight are machines to be owned, lived with, and repaired without unnecessary complications. ...next page >>