The Crankcase is a newer plastic(O matter)-frame pair that is very similar in design to the Gascan, Fuelcell, and Fives Squared. All of these models belong to Oakley's Lifestyle collection, which appears to comprise the company's less-expensive offerings. Even so, Oakley doesn't offer a cheap pair of sunglasses, as the same handful of materials (especially the "Plutonite" lenses) are generally used throughout, regardless of product line. The aforementioned models of the Lifestyle Collection fall at the lower end of the Oakley price range simply due to their featureless "O-Matter"/plastic frames. By featureless, I mean that they contain no areas of "unobtanium" rubber for grip. The positive side of that is that there's nothing on them to wear out except for the hinges (which contain no metal prone to rust).  Despite the lack of frame features, the lenses are in fact the same quality you'd find in any of the more-expensive models. The way I see it, when you buy Oakleys, you're basically paying for the lenses, so the plastic frames don't bother me much considering you can get them at a much lower price. After extensive online and in-store research of Oakley's bloated catalogue, I narrowed it down to three plastic framed pairs - Gascan, Fives Squared, and Crankcase - ultimately settling on the latter.

  It is worth mentioning that the Crankcase, Gascan, and Fuelcell are all very similar, but the small differences do matter. The Fuelcell has the largest lenses of the bunch (slightly)and has curved temples that wrap around the head. The Gascan has the shortest lenses top to bottom, while the temples are straighter and wrap less. The Crankcase is almost a hybrid of the two - closer in style to the Fuelcell, but closer in size to the Gascan. It has lenses very similar in shape to the Fuelcell's albeit smaller in dimension. The Crankcase lenses are actually narrower than the Gascan lenses by about 4mm (and the frame may be narrower overall), though these two pairs share the same 17mm nosebridge. The Crankcase, like the Fuelcell, also has temples with more curve. That was a feature I didn't know I wanted until I tried these all on at the Oakley store (ya gotta try them on if you can). I was initially going to go with the smaller-lense Fives Squared, but frame just didn't stay on my head that well, and felt like it was going to fall off too easily. Perhaps the temples were too short and didn't go far enough behind my head. All the other pairs stayed on my head better, including the straight-templed Gascan. Some people with larger heads have complained of too much pressure with the Gascan temples, but my small head (size 7) didn't mind them at all.

Even so, I found the Crankcase striking the best balance between size, fit, style, and ultimately price. At the Oakley store the pair I wanted (matte black/violet iridium) would have set me back nearly 120$, but then I found it here on Amazon for less than 70$. I wanted a matte black frame, and saw the Gascan only came with plain gray lenses in that frame color unless you went up in price for Black Iridium polarized lenses. I figured the violet iridium lense of the Crankcase was a more interesting color choice for about the same cost. From the outside, they appear as a mirrored purple, but looking out through them one sees a greenish tint. Oakley currently lists this lense tint as having a protection rating of only 1, but after emailing them, they confirmed that it is actually a 3; this makes more sense given its relatively dark tint. Overall, I'm very happy with the Crankcase in general and I feel it was a good choice. If you've been looking into the Gascan and/or Fuelcell (I've been seeing more of these styles lately), consider the Crankcase, but definitely try them all on before you make your decision. Even though none of these are super expensive by Oakley standards, a pair of nice sunglasses is still something of a small investment, and you'll be wearing them a lot.