Let’s be honest, up to this point you’ve been thinking about hybrids for middle aged family types – or maybe early retirees who can afford the initial outlay and are happy getting the high mpg figures in a relatively boring way.
And up to this point, that may have been a fairly reasonable analysis. The car makers haven’t exactly been targeting the young go-getters with more money than sense with their various types of low emission cars.
After all, when did you last read about a Premier League footballer with a hybrid, or a top-flight City banker with an electric car? It just doesn’t fit the Top Gun image for today’s young wannabee sex symbols. Or does it?
The fact is that the dowdy image suffered hitherto by hybrid owners may be about to change courtesy of one of the pioneers of green motoring – namely, Honda.
The company has recently announced tantalising details of the world’s first supercharged hybrid car; the Honda CR-Z Mugen.
The Honda CR-Z hybrid coupe is already one of the planet’s top hybrid cars. And it’s the only one with a manual gearbox as opposed to CVT – so you can give it a bit more oomph when you want to.
It’s also one of the best-looking sports cars around.
First unveiled as a concept car back in 2007, the Honda CR-Z is both sporty and efficient – but still and relatively cheap to buy and to run.
Mugen Euro, meanwhile, is a super tuning company based in England which is working with Honda to produce the supercharged hybrid prototype; the CR-Z Mugen.
The new car is designed to be fun to drive whilst simultaneously demonstrating the true potential of hybrid technology to a wider and younger audience.
Keep an eye out for the production models.