What is the purpose of the Crosstour? I asked as I waited for my test car to be readied. Pause. Finally an answer, The Crosstour is now the high-end Accord. It is designed to compete with the Toyota Venza. Ah, I get it: monkey see monkey do. What better way to give the marque a kick in the shorts than to pinch an idea from the market leader. And so they did. Almost. Partly. Sort of.

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There are guys at my gym that work out hard, three times a day, chiseling their chests and abs to perfection, compensating for the fact that God didn’t give them High School Musical faces. They are masterpieces of strength, structure – everything other than looks. From now on, I will secretly call them Crosstours.

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Eight years ago I was looking at the exact same speedometer in a Honda Helix scooter. No joke. The speedo in the Helix and Insight are absolutely one and the same. Now most of you may not know what a Honda Helix actually is. Fair enough. It’s a very large scooter that can go 70 mph, get 70 mpg, and puts you in a near recliner position when on the road. Honda happily made them for 20 years. The Insight? Well multiply the Helixes $5000 cost by five and you pretty much get all that and the most fun to drive hybrid on the road today.

From the 1970s to the 1990s, Honda earned a reputation as the most technically innovative and ecologically sensitive Japanese automaker. Honda introduced the first hybrid to the American market. Unfortunately, its rep for green tech leadership took a big hit when the original Insight, an EV1ish tear-drop-shaped two-seater, was totally eclipsed by Toyota’s Prius. Hybrid versions of the Civic and Accord did little to stem Toyota’s PR gains. For 2010, Honda has introduced an all-new Insight hybrid. Does this car have a shot at ending Toyota’s dominance of the green car mindscape?

Less than a generation ago, speed was the name of the game. Hands-on automotive enthusiasts would swap their car’s two-barrel carb for a four, replace the manifold, straighten the exhaust, anything and everything to make their ride go faster (at least in a straight line). Even the mechanically ignorant knew that power equalled status, whether under-hood or at their fingertips (windows!). These days, consumption is no longer a disease; it’s an addiction. Where once we laughed watching my buddy Artie’s ’69 Camaro’s fuel needle fall, the new Honda Insight has a needle showing me how much fuel I’m saving. It’s not a very clever insight, but the Insight is a very clever car.

Sequels are tricky. With few exceptions they are worse than the originals. Empire Strikes Back and Godfather II are the only examples I can think of where the follow up exceeds the original. Rumor has it that Weekend at Bernie’s II is better than the first film, but I couldn’t tell you. And sometimes you have a part deux that misses the point. Like Terminator II. You know the one where the 12-year-old boy tells the ruthless cyborg from the future not to kill anyone. Hey look, as movie T2 is perfectly pleasant (though it does feature George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone”), but it’s nowhere as lean, mean, terrifying or fascinating as the original. I think you know where this is going.

This morning I rolled out of bed, performed my morning ablutions, downed a bowl of Raisin Bran, dropped my sons off at school and started my stop-and-go commute to work. A never-ending stream of blinking taillights precedes me up and down the interstate through the pre-dawn din. Wannabe comedians inanely chatter and squawk through my radio. Finally my exit arrives: a lightly traveled mile-long arcing two-lane spur that connects interstate to turnpike. In a brief burst of adrenaline energy that widens my bleary eyes, I break away from the gridlock and shoot up the ramp. In third gear I push up to 80 mph as my car confidently hunches down and steers precisely through the sweeping turn. By the time I join the turnpike I coast down and assimilate into the flow of the traffic. These brief thrills make me glad that I opted for a sportier, nimble handling family sedan. But I drive an ’01 Accord. The 2009 Accord LX is no fun at all.

An accord is, by its nature, a compromise. While enthusiasts bemoan the Honda Accord’s increased size and lowered fuel efficiency, in truth, the automaker’s done the right thing. They’ve relentlessly identified and ruthlessly removed every possible reason why a cost-conscious American car buyer wouldn’t sign-up for a four-cylinder Accord. In my responsibility to my readers, I can highlight a couple of places where they’ve missed the bloat, I mean boat. But it ain’t easy…

Growing up, I thought the Porsche 911 was hideous. Its bug eyes and lumpy lines made me wonder if the designer had accidentally knocked modeling clay off his drafting table and submitted the splatter. This notion persisted until I drove one. Some 130 mph later, I considered the 911 the most beautiful automotive form on earth. Driving the all-new 2009 Honda Pilot EX-L kinda sorta triggered the same type of perceptual realignment. Call it Zen and the art of "challenging" design.

Honda was the first automaker to offer Americans a car-based SUV with a third row of seats. It didn't matter that an Odyssey minivan was more fun to drive. Families wanted a third row without the stigma of a minivan or the bulk of a conventional SUV. The Pilot outsold all other midsize car-based SUVs. Then new competitors piled into the segment: Hyundai Veracruz, GMC Acadia, Mazda CX-9 and more. Honda lost its place at the head of the class. For the 2009 model year, Honda has responded with a fully redesigned Pilot. Have they done enough to reclaim their supremacy?