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Finalists for 2014 Green Car of the Year announced

The list of finalists for the 2014 Green Car of the Year has been announced, and in a genuinely bizarre twist, there's only one hybrid and no electric vehicles among the five contestants, despite the arrival of cars like the BMW i3 and Tesla Model S. Taking the place of the EVs are a pair of diesels, repping a technology that last won a Green Car of the Year award in 2009, when the Audi A3 TDI took the title. No diesel was in the running for last year's award.
Naturally, both of the diesel finalists are fielded by the Germans - with BMW's 328d and Audi's A6 TDI getting the nod. In the case of the 3 Series, BMW installed a 2.0-liter, turbodiesel, capable of delivering 180 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque, while returning 45 miles per gallon on the highway. Audi and its larger, 3.0-liter, V6 turbodiesel produce quite a bit more grunt, with 240 hp and 428 lb-ft of grunt, but net a very impressive 38 mpg on the highway in the A6.
Finalists for this year's awards include two diesels, three gas-powered cars and a plug-in hybrid.

Honda working on mid-engine sports car?

The NSX and new Civic Type R might not be the end of Honda's performance push. Patent images obtained by Autovisie in the Netherlands show the Japanese brand's possible design for another mid-engine sports car with what looks to be a removable top. According to Autovisie, the patent was registered on May 27 and was just released. However, nothing else official is known about the vehicle at this time. We can think of several possibilities as to what this might be. Honda is reportedly already working on the design for a future NSX convertible, although these images show significant changes to the overall shape compared to the coupe, which makes this possibility dubious. The automaker is also considering a performance model to slot below its halo car in the future, but without any scale, the size is hard to judge here. The S660 coming to North America is rumored as well, and maybe these shots are a redesign. Of course, the company's designers might just be toying around and patenting the shape for something else. This design definitely has a familial resemblance with the NSX and S660, and it looks great. Let us know in Comments what you think the vehicle might be.

Honda speeds down memory lane with its first F1 car

Though most Formula One teams are based in the UK, they hail from places all around the world. There are teams from Russia, India and Malaysia, but in the 1960s, the idea of an F1 team coming from as far away as Japan was unthinkable in what was a predominantly European racing series. That's just the notion that Honda aimed to upset when it entered the car you see here in the 1964 Formula One World Championship.
With a 1.5-liter V12 dispensing 220 horsepower through a six-speed manual (its shifter necessitating the steering wheel mounted left-of-center), the 1964 Honda RA271 was built around an aluminum monocoque in a package that looks like a Formula Vee car you could erect in your garage, but it state-of-the-art when it was built. Speaking of which, Honda only built one, and today it's part of the Honda Collection Hall at Motegi, but the priceless racer made the trip down to Japan's capital so we could check it out at the Tokyo Motor Show. Awfully nice of Honda, we'd say. Check it out in our gallery of live shots from the show floor above.