Yes, the HF was the economy model, the DX was the "normal" model, and the Si was the sport model. My Si would give me easily 40 mpg on the highway. The Si was only available with a manual trans and I believe the HF was the same. Options when I bought my 88 were simple: What color do you want? Do you want "the" factory stereo or not stereo? Do you want A/C or not? I got 20+ solid years out of it and never opened the engine or trans. After a catastrophic engine failure at 396,000+ miles, I sold it for $600 to a CRX enthusiast who is going to restore it with his son.
Honda Scamp had 10 inch wheels Honda Z also had 10 inch wheels Then there was the Honda S600 and S800 which looked the same and ran 13 inch wheels from memory. Front engine, rear wheel drive. The differential was in front of the back wheels and drive to the wheels was by chains allowing independent swinging arm suspension, just like a motorcycle! What else from Honda?
Yes, the HF model was rated somewhere in the 50s. It was stripped down, with small tires and only one outside mirror. I had the "big" engine, not the HF model. Even with that I routinely got mileage in the 40s. If I drove like a maniac, which I often did in that car, I could push the mileage down to 35. I occasionally see one on the road, but not very often anymore. Tom
I lived in L.A. when I bought mine and was there until 2002. In L.A. the CRX was everywhere back in the day. The MR2 and Fiero were competitors and the MR2 was easy to spot but the Fiero didn't make much of a showing in the L.A. area. I'm sure it was reversed here in MI at the time. Yes, I had a few tanks in the low 30s but they sure were the exception. I went to a local race track a few months ago, shortly after selling my dead CRX, and the first race I saw had something like 5 out of 15-20 cars that were CRX Si models.
CRX was perfect example of a car that can no longer be made for the highway. safety regs pushed it out of the market. made me wonder why a specially modded version could not be made for city driving only, but i guess to much work to create specialty cars, especially for fleet vehicles that never leave the city in which they work...WAIT!!... ummm... now why was that a bad idea again? on a daily basis (almost...i now split time between Zenn and 2010) i drive a car that also would not pass safety regs... but it can only go 35 mph. what if, we brought the CRX back, specially tuned the tranny to be ultra efficient at street speeds and it couldnt do highway speeds?? nah... that might make too much sense. and if EV's finally get a decent power pack, then it would be a waste of money i guess....i guess **edit** forgot something... the CRX went out in the 80's...America is now, on average, 20 lbs heavier. i guess they simply would not fit in one anymore