2009 Honda Accord Lx on 2040-cars

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Race Recap: 2013 Indianapolis 500 better than Bollywood; all the emotion, none of the music [spoilers]

If the 2013 Indy 500 were a movie it would be the one expected to win all the little statues come awards season, and if it were an athlete it would have made spectators watch in awe as it broke record after record. And this kind of talk comes after last year's race was considered one of the best ever - the last lap hijinks in 2012 and Takuma Sato's crash leading to a podium ceremony straight out of a Golden Globes tearjerker.
But this year's race delivered more than anyone expected, from the 250,000 fans to the commentators to the IndyCar series itself and, finally, to the guy who hopped through a two-mile window on Lap 197 to take the lead and keep it until the end.

Nissan Rogue gives brand rare monthly sales lead over Honda

The five top-selling brands in the automotive industry are usually Ford, Toyota, Chevy, Honda and Nissan, in that order. This lineup emerged intact when counting a year's worth of sales for 2013, and there was no reason to expect it would change at the beginning of 2014. But it did. Thanks to surging sales of its all-new Rogue, Nissan managed to pull ahead of Honda to become the fourth best-selling auto brand in January 2014, selling 81,472 units (an increase of 10.41 percent compared to January 2013) to Honda's 80,808 (a decrease of 3.96 percent).
The Rogue led the way for Nissan, contributing an additional 4,880 units in January compared to the same month last year - a 54.5-percent increase for a grand total of 13,831 units. But the Rogue had help, with the Frontier pickup adding an extra 2,307 units (an 87.9-percent increase), the Juke an extra 1,081 units (a 45.8-percent increase), the Altima an extra 1,051 units (a 4.9-percent increase) and the Maxima an additional 983 units (a 32.9-percent increase). Honda, meanwhile, was hurt by falling sales of the Accord (down 13.9 percent) and Pilot (down 7.6 percent), and stagnant sales of the Civic.
Honda, however, should take pride in the fact that it's luxury division, Acura, outsold Infiniti, Nissan's luxury division, last month - 10,823 units sold to 8,998. That margin of victory was large enough to keep the parent company of American Honda ahead of Nissan North America for the month of January.

Honda Project 2&4 concept has 212 hp, 893 lbs, and our hearts

Take one look at the Honda Project 2&4 concept, and it's immediately clear that the minimalist track special is the result of a collaboration between automotive and motorcycle designers. The body's styling is a modernized take on the Japanese brand's RA272 Formula One car from the 1960s, but then you notice the weird driver's seat that's fully exposed and suspended just inches above the road. The result is a vehicle that looks absolutely deadly, but like an absurd thrill to pilot, too. The Project 2&4's floating seating design simultaneously evokes both a sport bike and a go-kart. There's no dashboard or windshield at all, and the driver simply gets a steering wheel and a glass panel for the instruments. It's hard to imagine pairing things down much more than this, especially since the whole vehicle weighs just 893 pounds. The concept's other major piece of motorcycle DNA is the mid-mounted 1.0-liter V4 sourced from Honda's RC213V that races in MotoGP. Tuned here for road use, it puts down over 212 horsepower when spinning at 13,000 rpm, and peak torque of 87 pound-feet hits at a still stellar 10,500 rpm. The redline is at a stratospheric 14,000 rpm. The high-revving engine bangs through the gears through a six-speed dual clutch transmission. Unfortunately, the Project 2&4 has zero provisions for even a modicum of driver safety, and that makes it exceedingly unlikely for one to ever see customer orders. We still look forward to seeing that bizarre, floating seat on display at the 2015 Frankfurt Motor Show, though. HONDA PROJECT 2&4 POWERED BY RC213V TO DEBUT AT FRANKFURT: A COMBINATION OF GLOBAL CREATIVITY AND CRAFTSMANSHIP Winner of Honda's 'Global Design Project' to debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show Cabin-less structure features a floating seat design for immersive driving experience Powered by Honda's MotoGP RC213V engine, modified to run on public roads 'Honda Project 2&4 powered by RC213V', the winning entry from Honda's 'Global Design Project', will make its global debut at the 66th Frankfurt Motor Show at stand B11 in Hall 9.0. Embodying the concept of 'creative craftsmanship', Honda Project 2&4 celebrates Honda's position as the world's leading engine manufacturer, providing engines to 28 million people per year across two- and four-wheel automotive, power equipment, marine and aerospace applications.