Toyota is arguably Japan's most recognized brands in all of automotive history, ranging from the most luxurious Century to the best sounding car in the world, the LFA, and featuring largely in pop culture and movies like Fast & Furious and Initial D as hero cars. So, its not better way to start this brand off than by tracking the incredible 60-year evolution of its small-car DNA: a legendary lineage spanning the Publica , the cult-classic Starlet , the game-changing Vitz , and today's rally-bred Yaris . During the early days of the Japanese automobile industry, a "national car" was needed by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). It need to have a maximum speed over 100 kph, a weight below 400 kg, a fuel consumption not exceeding 30 km/L at the average speed of 60 kph on a level road, but also the requirement that the car would not break down or require significant repairs for at least 100,000 kilometers. Toyota created the Publica for this spec...
Following our deep dives into the razor-sharp track geometry of the FireBlade , the naked streetfighter evolution of the Hornet , and most recently, the heavyweight touring Blackbird ; it is time to pivot to one of Honda’s most brilliant, yet misunderstood, engineering ambitions of the late 1980s. In an era when the motorcycle industry was locking horns over fully faired sportbikes and high-rpm inline-fours, Honda’s advanced design groups—the very same minds concurrently working on the legendary RC30 (VFR750R) race bike—quietly kicked off a project with a completely different mandate. Following reliability issues with their early V4 engine lineup, Honda desperately needed to demonstrate their absolute mastery of engineering refinement and chassis design. The goal wasn't a raw top-speed machine, but rather a premium, lightweight naked sport-standard designed to conquer urban environments and mountain passes alike. When the platform debuted, it defied conventional categorization by m...