Japanese Car Auction Finds: 2010 Honda CR-Z
This latest Honda CR-Z currently occupies a unique place in the hybrid car market in that it is an affordable vehicle that seeks to combine frugality with sportiness. It is targeting a different kind of customer to the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight, but at the same time it is affordable in the way a Cayenne or Lexus hybrid is not.
Another way in which it takes a road to traditional hybrids is that it is offered with a manual transmission for that “sporty” feel. This shows just how seriously Honda is taking this sporty angle, as a lot of more traditional sporting cars in Japan are mainly sold with automatic transmissions.
This particular example is one of these 6-speed manuals. It is the top-of-the-range “alpha” model. Since the CR-Z is still a relatively new model, it is not surprising that only 5 grade 5 “alpha” models with manual transmissions have been sold in live bidding the last 3 months. (In contrast to the 58 comparable automatic transmission grade 5 “alphas” sold during the same period). This manual one is likely to go for around 1.9 million Yen, which is about 100,000 Yen more than you would expect a similar automatic model to go for.
(c) Integrity Exports Co. Ltd. – Japan car auction buyer and exporter.
