This Is Honda: The 2020 Honda CR-V Touring

The 2020 Honda CR-V Touring.

About the headline.  Yes, Honda makes several cars.  All of them very, very good cars.  But the CR-V is Honda in the sense that it is the best-selling vehicle Honda makes and it embodies pretty much every virtue that has made Honda what it is for the past 40-plus years.

Goldilocks' Own Honda: The 2020 Honda Insight Touring

The 2020 Honda Insight Touring.

If I say "Honda", you might say "Civic". Or "Accord". Or "CR-V". Odds are, you won't say "Insight". You might not even know there is such a car as the Honda Insight. And if you do, you probably have the wrong impression of it.

21 years ago, the first Honda Insight came along---a hybrid, to do battle with the Toyota Prius. It was funny looking (even compared to the Prius) and only a two-seater, which made it impractical for families. It flopped and was pulled from the market after seven years.

11 years ago, the second Honda Insight appeared. Also a hybrid, it had seating for five and looked like someone laid a sheet of tracing paper over a picture of a Prius and then blurred the details a bit so the lawyers could relax. It cost less than a Prius. But it was smaller inside than the Toyota, was slower than the Prius and still got worse gas mileage. It was dead and gone in five years. Strike two.

Last year, Honda brought back the Insight name but applied it to a new four-door sedan. It's a hybrid again, this time with an EPA fuel economy estimate of 51 miles per gallon highway and 45 city.

And it's darn near perfect.

Hitting The Target---Again: The 2019 Subaru Forester Touring

The 2019 Subaru Forester Touring.

I had to go through the TireKicker archives to be sure (after 10-plus years, that's more of a job than you might imagine)---but the last time we were in a Subaru Forester was the last time there was an all-new one---five years ago.

In that review of the 2014 Subaru Forester, we said that the marvel was that Subaru made major improvements to a vehicle that, if you'd asked us, we'd say "just don't screw it up".  But they went beyond---improved things we didn't realize could be better.

And they've done it again.

Niche No More: The 2017 Honda CR-V AWD Touring

The 2017 Honda CR-V AWD Touring.

Nine years ago, when I was launching TireKicker, small SUVs were just starting to catch on.  They had a nickname: "Cute-Utes".  And, if that sounds somewhat dismissive, well, I guess it was.  It suggested that they weren't really up to the task that, in those days, we assigned to Ford Explorers and Chevy Tahoes.

What a difference nine-tenths of a decade makes.  The landscape has changed so much that not only is the Honda CR-V outselling Explorers and Tahoes, it is, for the year so far, the fifth-best selling vehicle in the USA.

One Step Further: The 2016 Toyota Avalon Touring

The 2016 Toyota Avalon.

With its 2013 re-design, Toyota moved the Avalon away from its decades-long image of being the sensible car choice for retirees---the car most often found in Luby's Cafeteria parking lots at 4:30 in the afternoon.  It has been a successful strategy.  Perhaps too successful.

In toughening up the Avalon, Toyota made it too tough for returning customers, who Toyota does not want to scare off while it brings the car into the here and now.  So for 2016, most Avalons will get a softer suspension.  The Touring model, on the other hand, gets an even stiffer one.