Honda Small Hybrid Sports Concept

In Geneva, Honda showed off another compact, sporty 2+2, this one with a fictional hybrid drivetrain and a straightforward name in the vein of Acura’s recent “Advanced” concepts. The CRX is an obvious design influence, this time seen most clearly in the Small Hybrid Sports Concept’s concave rear window. With the low nose of a solar race car, a beetle-backed greenhouse à la Honda Insight, and flat flanks, the Small Hybrid Sports Concept employs all the aero tricks in order to extract the most from the four-cylinder hybrid powertrain it would have if Styrofoam had the structural integrity to support it. It doesn’t, though, so there’s an engine in this car only in sketches. The drawings of this vehicle also show humongous wheels, a promise the flesh-and-bone concept faithfully makes good on. With this car, we enter a world where even aerodynamically minded cars with 6.5-inch-wide tires get 20-inch rims.