Personal car related news

[Roman Legion]

I snapped some pictures really quick, I hope to bring it by a DeLorean meet sometime, so I can check out DeLoreans and let other people who care, look at my Insight. I can get to events for next to nothing and that's a huge appeal to the car for me, not to mention the unique shape, rarity of the car and the parts aren't hard to find. I do need to touch up a few things on the car, but those things are very minor.

Enjoy some hastily snapped pictures!

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[NightFlyer]

Looks like it was well maintained for having nearly 200k on the clock.

So are you back in VA now, or are you still in Vegas?

[Roman Legion]

Looks like it was well maintained for having nearly 200k on the clock.

So are you back in VA now, or are you still in Vegas?

Yes, it's in great shape and the cars if maintained can easily exceed 350k miles. There are minor issues (All cosmetic) but I can fix them as I go.

I'm back in Virginia for the time being, I'm at a school here, trying to get my A+ certification

[PB Co]

There was one other aluminum Honda. The flagship, NSX, made a 14 year production run with only small upgrades along the way. JZD had one in yellow for years. In many ways the NSX embodies the spirit of the ethical sports car.

Just because you do not yet have a DeLorean doesn't mean you can't own a rare and uniquely constructed car. I mean no disrespect to your previous ride, but to me unique engineering/materials makes the Insight more interesting.

Other cool upgrades for your new car... Honda would often reach out to Recaro to make their seats. This means some seats can be swapped in a totally safe bolt-on affair. Example, a 91-2001 Prelude can take S2000 seats after the seat pan is swapped.

[Roman Legion]

There was one other aluminum Honda. The flagship, NSX, made a 14 year production run with only small upgrades along the way. JZD had one in yellow for years. In many ways the NSX embodies the spirit of the ethical sports car.

Just because you do not yet have a DeLorean doesn't mean you can't own a rare and uniquely constructed car. I mean no disrespect to your previous ride, but to me unique engineering/materials makes the Insight more interesting.

Other cool upgrades for your new car... Honda would often reach out to Recaro to make their seats. This means some seats can be swapped in a totally safe bolt-on affair. Example, a 91-2001 Prelude can take S2000 seats after the seat pan is swapped.

Yeah, my Insight was built in the same factory as the NSX, which I always found kinda cool about the car. Yeah, I got to thinking one day about how much extra space the mustang had and the fact I didn't need a 4.6L V8 engine, higher insurance, higher maintenance and poor fuel economy and about that time I just started counting how many Mustangs I saw go past and decided to look up a car I've liked for a long time, but always had a hard time finding and after some looking, I made the deal happen and made sure the car was good and as you can see, it's in really good shape, only a few minor cosmetic fixes and the car will look entirely new again.

I'm not sure the production numbers of the gen 1 Insight or of how many of those were made with the paint mine has, but I'm told mine is rare and really, how often does one see a gen 1 Insight on the road? This car is unique, with low costs all around (Getting a grid charger to extend my battery life). It just blows my mind my car during the test drive on the highway at around 50 MPH over 70 MPG and over 60 on the interstate.

Aside from cost, uniqueness, interesting/ unique materials, it's a piece of automotive history and it's a manual transmission; I always regretted having an automatic mustang, that was a little boring. I do need to find a S2000 steering wheel, maybe I'll check craigslist or something, because mine is a little worn and it's so cool they shared the same wheel.

My dad is likely going to hate my Insight at first, but I own the car outright and have for years and he's still paying on a crappy minivan which he doesn't need. Once I show him what my car can do in lean burn mode (MPG), I'm sure he'll come around. I do love how spartan the Insight is. Oh, and when the PO showed me the auto idle stop feature, which is turned on by shifting to neutral, I thought it was so cool. I had a Prius next to me and his car was running the whole time at the stop light.

It is cool that people in public look at my car with a little confusion, but not so much interest they nearly run me off the road..lol Yeah, I know I'll have my DeLorean eventually, but I had to take car of my daily driver concern before anything and that's done.. Kinda.

I can't wait to go to a DeLorean meet now, I wonder if my non-DeLorean would attract any interest there. I love my window that's flat on the back of my car, makes reversing really easier. I've been using my tape deck as an iPod holder..lol I doubt it will damage the tape deck, but in a spartan car, it's damn convenient location for my iPod until I can get a newer radio to plug it in via USB.

Thanks everyone for the kind words, glad you guys like my ride. Funny thing is, in a few years, it'll be eligible for antique tags and if I put it in a car show, I'd be willing to bet it'd be the only one there.

[SIMid]

This is probably rarer than a Delorean!

Congrats with the swap!

[Roman Legion]

This is probably rarer than a Delorean!

Congrats with the swap!

I don't know about that, but I'd still say the DeLorean is rarer, but the gen 1 Insight too is pretty rare and can be picked up relatively cheap. It lacks power, so I take a hit if I have to downshift to accelerate on a hill or something. I took the car out this morning and got poor MPG and I took it out to do a few things this evening and the difference when I figure out how to bet better mileage was about double.

Morning I averaged like 37 MPG, this afternoon I drove like 53.1 miles and averaged like 58.2 MPG, I'd have gotten better than that, but I figured out how to get lean burn mode going mid way through my drive. Some parts of my drive I exceeded 100 MPG, where the lower points were down in the upper 30's (When I hit hills).

Now if I could master starting off from a dead stop on an incline without stalling out or giving it too much pedal and spinning the tires, that would be awesome. The guy I got the car from even put brembo brakes on it

Overall, I love this car and haven't noticed my fuel gauge drop at all after 50 miles. I'm still running on the tank the PO put in it. I've had 3-4 people stop me to ask about my car today and so many people stare at it.. Who knew the key to gaining attention was to just substitute displacement for high fuel efficiency? lol

I can say this, I'm very lucky to have found such a good example of a gen 1 Insight, this car is great and it' going on a 200 mile drive tomorrow afternoon for the weekend.

[NightFlyer]

I don't know about that, but I'd still say the DeLorean is rarer, but the gen 1 Insight too is pretty rare and can be picked up relatively cheap. It lacks power, so I take a hit if I have to downshift to accelerate on a hill or something. I took the car out this morning and got poor MPG and I took it out to do a few things this evening and the difference when I figure out how to bet better mileage was about double.

Morning I averaged like 37 MPG, this afternoon I drove like 53.1 miles and averaged like 58.2 MPG, I'd have gotten better than that, but I figured out how to get lean burn mode going mid way through my drive. Some parts of my drive I exceeded 100 MPG, where the lower points were down in the upper 30's (When I hit hills).

Now if I could master starting off from a dead stop on an incline without stalling out or giving it too much pedal and spinning the tires, that would be awesome. The guy I got the car from even put brembo brakes on it

Overall, I love this car and haven't noticed my fuel gauge drop at all after 50 miles. I'm still running on the tank the PO put in it. I've had 3-4 people stop me to ask about my car today and so many people stare at it.. Who knew the key to gaining attention was to just substitute displacement for high fuel efficiency? lol

I can say this, I'm very lucky to have found such a good example of a gen 1 Insight, this car is great and it' going on a 200 mile drive tomorrow afternoon for the weekend.

If you could figure out a way to drop a .8L Mercedes CRD diesel (as used in Smarts) into it and integrate it with the electric drive system, you could probably get an average of around 100 mpg

[Roman Legion]

If you could figure out a way to drop a .8L Mercedes CRD diesel (as used in Smarts) into it and integrate it with the electric drive system, you could probably get an average of around 100 mpg

Some other people driving gen 1 insights do average just that, just depends on how fast your going, how flat the terrain is and if it's city driving or not.

I need to keep practicing my clutch and shifting because I'm learning to fear stopping on anything incline. I either stall on the hill, car starts jerking or I accidentally spin the tires on occasion. I never know how much clutch to take off or how much accelerator to give and that crap is killing my MPG and irritating me in general.

If I could make this car more efficient, that would be awesome. Imagine dropping in Tesla electrics into this 1800 lbs, .025 drag coefficient car.. It would be amazing I think.

[NightFlyer]

Some other people driving gen 1 insights do average just that, just depends on how fast your going, how flat the terrain is and if it's city driving or not.

I need to keep practicing my clutch and shifting because I'm learning to fear stopping on anything incline. I either stall on the hill, car starts jerking or I accidentally spin the tires on occasion. I never know how much clutch to take off or how much accelerator to give and that crap is killing my MPG and irritating me in general.

If I could make this car more efficient, that would be awesome. Imagine dropping in Tesla electrics into this 1800 lbs, .025 drag coefficient car.. It would be amazing I think.

Yeah, I honestly don't know - it would be interesting to compare the mpg's obtainable with the lean burn against a small turbo diesel. I know that the Smart CRD turbo diesels average somewhere around 60 mpgs from what I've seen people report online. Thus in your car, I'm thinking it might produce averages of somewhere around 150 mpg, maybe even more.

I have a friend that owned a gen 1 insight for about 4 years. He used to average around 78 mpg's with it. I know that he did do a few efficiency mods, but have no idea what they were.

Definitely a fun little car - glad you're happy with it