The new Honda Insight review from hell

May 21, 4:43 PMRoad & Driver ExaminerRoman Mica

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                                                            The new Honda Insight gets the review form hell

To say that Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson hates the new Honda Insight in his recent review would be like saying that the British hate dental care.

OK, that may be a low blow against the English public, but Clarkson's review of the Insight is just as insulting.

Clarkson writes, "The Honda’s petrol engine is a much-shaved, built-for-economy, low-friction 1.3 that, at full chat, makes a noise worse than someone else’s crying baby on an airliner. It’s worse than the sound of your parachute failing to open. Really, to get an idea of how awful it is, you’d have to sit a dog on a ham slicer"

Now keep in mind that Clarkson also famously shot up (with a big big gun) the first generation of Toyota's Prius on Top Gear, and his opinion of the current model is not much better:

Which begs the question: Is Honda's Insight really so bad as to be, "Biblically terrible? Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more, " according to Clarkson.

The simple fact is that Clarkson hates pretty much any "green" car or for that matter any car with under 500 horsepower.

Just think of Clarkson as a highly successful blacksmith shoeing horses in the days of the first automobiles. He just can't seem to get the fact that world in changing from petrol to electricity.

Somebody needs to strap two 500 horsepower electric engines to a modern day dragster, and let Clarkson take the new car for a quarter mile spin.

Perhaps that would convince the cantankerous Brit that there is life after all of the world's petroleum is sucked dry by crazed automotive journalist doing meaningless (but ego boosting) donuts around their local test track.

And speaking of crazed car journalist, click HERE to read my recent adventure with the new 2010 Prius when I took it for a spin and tried to get the worst possible gas millage.

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