Honda has begun a search for the driver who has clocked up the most miles in its petrol electric IMA vehicles. And the company is prepared to offer a free replacement Civic IMA to the owner of the best presented original model with a recorded mileage of 100,000 or more.

"We want to highlight how much money IMA drivers will have saved in fuel bills and tax – as well as demonstrating how much CO2 has been prevented from entering the atmosphere," says Faye Burton, environmental manager for Honda UK.

Five years on from its launch  the Insight returns 83.1mpg on the EU combined cycle test – with a yet-to-be-surpassed carbon dioxide (CO2) emission figure of 80g/km.

Over a three-year period a company car Insight driver clocking the standard 20,000 miles per annum would have saved nearly £3,400 in fuel and benefit-in-kind tax and more than eight tonnes of CO2, over a standard 1.6 petrol hatch.

The Civic IMA, introduced to the UK in 2003, was another ‘world first’ – the application of a petrol electric system to an otherwise mainstream car.

With both the Insight IMA and the Civic IMA currently on sale, Honda has the distinction of being the only manufacturer to offer a choice of petrol electric vehicles in Britain. Both cars benefit from a 100% discount of the London Congestion Charge, saving a potential £1,355 per annum for a driver using the vehicle within the zone each day.

Honda R&D has big plans for the Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) system used in the Insight and is eager to get feedback on the platform on which the technology was pioneered. In 1988 Honda introduced VTEC on a single model – more than 70% of current Hondas now feature this technology.