CR-V is SUV of the year

Honda’s CR-V takes our SUV of the Year title.

By any measure, the Honda CR-V has enjoyed phenomenal success. The Japanese company has shifted more than 750,000 of them in Europe alone and rather than that trend slowing down, sales are on the up. That’s going to be helped with an improved version that delivers more of what CR-V customers like. And what CR-V customers appear to like is safety, reliability, efficiency, practicality and lots of buttons to press.

The big news with this CR-V is the 160hp 1.6-litre diesel engine, which replaces the old 150hp 2.2-litre diesel, an engine that was looking a bit off the pace in terms of efficiency. The 120hp 1.6-litre diesel carries on much as before and there’s a 2.0-litre petrol engine offered that’s probably going to be largely ignored by UK buyers.

Specify the CR-V with a manual gearbox and you can also have it in front as well as four-wheel drive guise. But you shouldn’t. That’s because Honda has replaced the old five-speed auto with a nine-speed automatic that then sends drive to all four wheels. It’s an impressive piece of technology and does a great job plugging the diesel engine right into the meat of its 350Nm of torque available from just north of 2,000rpm.

The cabin has been tweaked courtesy of a reshaped chrome-effect inlay running the width of the dashboard, and through the use of higher-quality materials on key surfaces. The dashboard has been redesigned to allow better visibility and access to the seveninch touchscreen displaying the Honda Connect system.

With the seats in place you get an excellent 589-litres of luggage space, which transforms to 1,648-litres with the seats folded. The load length is up to 1,570 mm, allowing the CR-V to easily swallow two adult mountain bikes (without having to remove the front wheels) or four sets of golf clubs.

Emissions are as low as 115g/km for a 1.6-litre 120PS diesel and residual values look set to stack up very well if the last CR-V was anything to go by.

The Honda CR-V.