Honda Civic CRX: Just Point and Shoot

Honda has probably produced more personally satisfying designs than any other car company in the world. It’s easy to take their sheer volume of good design for granted. I could fill a small warehouse with Honda favorites, but no matter how common, I’m always attracted to this astonishingly fine example of bold, efficient design from the mid-1980s.

Years from now, the CRX will probably be as revered as the ’32 Ford was by early hotrodders. The CRX can become anything its owner desires: an aero-cool cruiser, an autocross killer, or just a perfectly restored design statement of its time. Ten, 20 or even 50 years from now, a pristine CRX will still turn heads.

Mazda Miata: Roadster Is a Road Star

Amazingly, Mazda has cornered the market on modern, small, fun-to-drive sports cars. While the rest of the automotive world searches blindly for a niche market with expensive exotics, Mazda consistently keeps producing one of the best values in the world.

Now 20 years old and in its third generation, the constantly evolving Miata still hasn’t lost sight of the design team’s original concept and purpose. Each iteration’s engineering has been a marked improvement on the last thanks to constant feedback from the factory’s well-organized competition support group.

Competition provenance? This car has it. The Spec Miata class is today’s best entry-level racing game. No matter what your experience, talent, or level of preparation, you’ll always find a whole gaggle of racers running as fast as you can go. You’ll laugh yourself silly, it’s so much fun.

Subaru SVX: What to Drive

Fuji Heavy Industries is reported to have lost about $75 million introducing this amazing Tokyo Show concept car to the world. The svelte coupe featured a Giugiaro-designed body, Subaru’s advanced all-wheel-drive engineering, and a new, silky smooth flat-six. Fuji believed it was worth the investment, and they were right: Every yen spent to upgrade the status of the Subaru name worldwide was well spent.

But even industrial giants like Fuji can’t afford to lose $3000 per car forever. Eventually this bold “loss leader” program was curtailed, but you can still benefit from their largesse.

Pick up one of these really rare and wonderful machines—sold from model years 1992 through 1997—and you’ll find worldwide kinship in a bunch of loyal, enthusiastic owners. The SVX’s unique glass-to-glass “window within a window” design created a beautiful greenhouse. Its compound curved side glass is usually only seen on limited-production supercars costing far more.

Acura NSX: This One Makes a Statement About the People Who Build It

This is one of the finest automobiles to ever emerge from Honda’s engineering department. The quality that has gone into this underappreciated gem is now paying off for those who’ve done their homework and picked one up for a reasonable price.

The car’s only failing was a soulless perfection that left it without character. Its silky smooth, too-quiet V6 engine never really appealed to performance-minded buyers who could choose any number of raucous, V8-powered American pony cars for thousands less. As a result, the NSX has languished on the secondary market. If you have the chance, don’t miss the opportunity to own one of Honda’s finest.