Honda Film: Controlling Air Pollution A 'Never-Ending Race'

The fight to improve air quality may not sound like fodder for a typical Hollywood blockbuster, but Honda has done its best to make the topic exciting.

The latest short film in the company's Environmental Short Film series--this one titled "Never Ending Race"--depicts Honda's efforts to respond to the far stricter Federal and state environmental legislation in the 1970s that resulted from efforts to improve the heavy air pollution in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

It was just like racing, the filmmakers say.

While Los Angeles was experiencing around 100 Stage One smog alerts a year, Honda had just ended several years of competition in Formula One racing.

According to Honda, the tightening of emissions standards that followed the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 was a challenge similar to the competition of top-level racing.

Both involved extracting maximum vehicle performance from a strictly defined set of rules.

While many other automakers balked at the idea of cleaning up vehicle emissions, Honda's engineers took a "positive attitude" and dove into the challenge.

The climax of the film is the launch of the CVCC engine in 1975, which met California emission standards without the addition of an expensive catalytic converter.