2000 Honda Insight remains most fuel efficient hybrid 12 years after its creation

If it wasn’t for the tall “CAT” sign, you might miss engineer Clark Thomas’ shop (“Clark’s Autos and Trucks”) on Eagle Rock Boulevard. But beyond simply repairing and selling old cars, Thomas has become the go-to guy in the western states for what was once the car of the future: the 2000 Honda Insight — the first gas-electric hybrid for sale in the U.S.

Thomas has sold cars in Eagle Rock since the 1970s. Eight years ago, he took in his first Honda Insight, and fell in love with the two-seater hatchback and battery pack.

“All the people who have laughed at me over the years are driving this car now,” Thomas said.

Thomas buys 100 cars a year at auction; about 70 are Insights. He and his three mechanics fix and resell them for anywhere from $4,500 up to $8,000.

“[Buyers] are flying in from Oregon, from Washington and from Texas,” Thomas said. “And I pick them up at the Burbank Airport, bring them on over and usually within in a few hours, they’re headed down the highway with their car.”

The 2000 Honda Insight was, and still is, the most fuel-efficient hybrid ever at 61 miles per gallon on the highway. The technology was innovative, but what gave the Insight its edge was that its case was aluminum, not steel.

Thomas says he once asked a Honda engineer what he thought of the 2000 Insight. “And his comment was, ‘That was a mistake,'” Thomas recalled. “He then turned around and said, ‘It was [a mistake] because we showed what we could do.’”

Honda spokesman Chris Martin wouldn’t exactly call the original Insight a mistake. He says the technology lives on today in Honda’s hybrids, and in the new all-electric version of the Fit.

“Really, Honda wanted to build a car that could show the full potential,” said Martin. “Now that car had some compromises — only two seats, limited weight capacity — so for the average consumer based on fuel prices, it wasn’t a high volume car.”

Honda sold only about 14,000 of the first Insights in North America, but driving priorities were different when it launched. Gas prices were barely over a dollar a gallon around most of the country, and the economy was still booming.

“But there was a really core group of customers who clambered onto the Insight,” Martin hastened to add. “Engineers, people with a really scientific bent who understood how great that car really was.”

People like Clark Thomas. Today, Thomas has retooled his welders and other machinery so they’ll work better with the Insight’s aluminum. He even teaches classes on hybrids.

“With so many miles attainable by the car, it doesn’t seem like I could step out of the shadow that I’ve created for myself," Thomas said. "It looks to me like I am here for a while.”