Green with envy; Acura heading for market with a 400-hp, 42-mpg hybrid performance car.(News)(Acura DN-X sports sedan concept car)(Brief Article)

Byline: BOB GRITZINGER

The Paris motor show offered its share of fuel cell and hybrid news: GM's skateboard-like Hy-Wire made its rolling debut, while Peugeot showed the H2O, a fuel cell-powered firetruck (really, we're not making this up), and Renault rolled out a turbodiesel with an integrated starter-generator capable of propelling the car on electric power alone.

Somewhere between Toyota's claims that its gasoline-electric Prius is turning a profit, and General Motors' promises for its pie-in-the-sky fuel cell-powered electric car of the future, lies a niche for performance-variety hybrids that no one has bothered talking about very much.

Although typically touted as easier on the planet than anything since the invention of the internal-combustion engine, fuel cell cars and hybrids-the great green hopes-and high-performance tuning have rarely shared the same space. At least until now.

Honda officials say that, in the next 12 to 18 months, they're preparing to make good on the promise embodied in the Acura DN-X sports sedan concept shown at last spring's New York auto show. The car first appeared as the Honda Dualnote at the earlier Tokyo show, where our editors promptly named it Best in Show (AW, Nov. 5, 2001).

``Don't let the four doors fool you,'' American Honda's executive vice president Tom Elliott said back then. ``The DN-X concept is all sports car.''

More recently, Elliott has been quoted saying Honda's follow-up to the hybrid Insight and Civic Hybrid will be an Acura-badged gas-electric hybrid performance car. ``And it could be soon,'' Elliott says.