No, not really, at least not yet anyway, but it is possible that they will make a return to F1 sometime in the not too distant future.

 
On the plus side, there have been rumours of talks taking place between McLaren and Honda and every fan of either organisation must remember the glory days from 1988 to 1992 when Honda McLaren dominated the sport and Prost and Senna were the drivers.

 
The ideal time for a new McLaren Honda pairing would be in 2014 when the sport switches to smaller hybrid turbo engines. This would be a sensible move for McLaren, particularly as their engine provider Mercedes now has its own team.

 
Given the current excellent McLaren driver line up of Jensen button and Lewis Hamilton, it must have been very difficult for the team to find themselves so dominated by Red Bull. The same could happen in 2012 and obviously something radical is needed.

 
The problem is that it is difficult to see a good business reason for Honda’s return. When they left F1 in 2008 there were good reasons for doing so, and they still remain, though returning as an engine supplier is not as challenging as owning a team. The small capacity hybrid turbo engines would seem to be right up Honda’s street. The problem is that the Honda share price is fairly depressed and that tends to discourage too much risk taking.

 
Never mind, even without Honda we have the potential of a stunning 2012 F1 season about to begin; we can’t wait.

It has been a tough time for workers at the Honda car production plant in Swindon which is where the Honda Civic is produced. Ever since September that has been working just part time.

The reason for the short time working, which meant that workers worked only for three half shifts a week, was due the a shortage of parts from Thailand. This was a direct consequence of the serious flooding that happened there in the summer.

Fortunately for the workers, they still received full pay. The deal was that there would be no reduction in wages, but the workers would be required to make up for the lost work hours in the future. Effectively the workers banked future hours which they would need to catch up on.

A spokesperson for Honda has indicated that thee are no firm rules on how long workers have to make up their lost hours, but it will certainly take several months. This is not the first time that Honda has approached these kinds of problems in this way. The first time they did it was following the tsunami.

As well as returning to full time production, Honda will also be increasing the size of its workforce. 500 new jobs will be created and the workforce will increase to 3,500. Production, which is currently 100,000 a month, will be increased to 180,000 and there will be extra shifts introduced.

The new Honda Civic is the ninth generation of this very popular car and there have been some exciting developments. It is said to be the smoothest and quitest Civic to date.

The New Honda Civic

Although not exactly cheap, the new Honda CR-Z Mugen will still be affordable when it is launched in 2012 with base prices of around £23,000.

Although £23,000. is round about £5,000 more than you can expect to pay for the Honda CR-Z in its most basic trim and £2,000 more than the cost of a CR-Z 1.5 GT, when you see what you are getting for your money the CR-Z Mugen is reasonably priced.

Unlike many other hybrids that tend to look relatively tame with a style designed to appeal to the more conservative environmentally conscious, the Mugen has very aggressive looks. The car is a very sporty looking coupe which has a performance to match its looks.

It combines a supercharged petrol engine with a state of the a electric motor which give it just under 200bhp. The sports suspension includes adjustable dampers with five settings. The brakes have been upgraded (for the technically minded these are now four-pot callipers with vented and grooved 320mm discs) and the front track has been increased.

The driving characteristics are interesting too. When you launch the car the powerful electric motor provides huge amounts of torque prior to the supercharger kicking in and although you might have to work the six speed gearbox to maintain high torque levels through the revs the car simply powers along. Treat it tamely and it feels tame, but it responds well to a little aggression; 0 to 60 acceleration time is just 6.1 seconds. Cornering is excellent die to the modified suspension and there is very little body roll, especially in sports setting.

Expect to see these models appear in showrooms from February 2012.

Honda CR-Z Mugen

The Honda rider Marco Simoncelli lost his life in a tragic accident at the Suzuka race circuit this Sunday.

Honda is in mourning following the death of Simoncelli and has cancelled the debut of their new 1,000 cc bikes for the coming season which was planned to take place at Sepang. Hondo has given is sincere condolences to the rider’s family and the race team and the huge number of Simoncelli’s fans.

The Vice President of Honda Shuhei Nakamoto said that he could not find the words to express his sorrow. He even castigated himself for being too harsh to his and expressed his sincere thanks for what he had given.

The whole paddock was deeply shocked. Even though everyone accepts the dangers inherent in MotoGP when tragedy happens it is always unexpected.

Similar sentiments were expressed by Casey Stoner the current world champion. He said that the death had made him feel sick inside. He said that he was very sorry for Marco’s family.

This is the second time in eight years that one of Honda’ riders was killed. The other was Daijiro Kato who was killed in 2003 after crashing into a wall in Suzuka. He had just moved into the premier class following his 250cc title win in 2001.

In order to comply with the homologation requirements, Honda is releasing 500 models of the Honda Civic Ti which are based in the Honda Racing BTCC 2011 Championship Civics. In case you are not familiar with homologation, it is a requirement of any production-based motorsport that a number of production models of the race car are produced that are compliant with the major features of the race car including such items as engine capacity, chassis, and suspension.

The limited edition Honda Civic Ti models are essentially modelled on the 1.4 and 1.8 i-VTEC SE but they have a number of extras including 17 inch Pro Race wheels, front and rear spoilers along with side and rear body skirts. There is also an advanced multimedia pioneer navigation system. In short, the car looks stunning.

Honda Civic Ti