Honda HR-V
REPORT 6
£32,260 OTR/£36,035 as tested/£443pcm
WHY IT’S HERE
Does Honda’s eco champ stand out from the crossover crowd?
DRIVER
Rowan Horncastle
NEWS FLASH: THE HONDA HR-V ISN’T A FUN CAR. BUT THAT doesn’t mean the HR V can’t be fun You just have to use it as a means of fun And thanks to its masterful practicality and some absurdly and potentially stupid lateral thinking recently I have
Just to recap here are the surprisingly handsome Honda’s killer ingredients a litre naturally aspirated petrol engine a pair of compact e motors and a dinky battery You have permission to yawn But it gets better By which I mean it gets worse See that rapturous drivetrain clout is connected to a CVT gearbox that whirrs you to the national speed limit in seconds Since he’s had it the most ‘fun’ thing Charlie its usual proprietor has said to me about it is that he hasn’t touched the brake pedal since Easter returning over mpg As you can imagine Charlie is going to be a riot at this year’s Christmas party
Now like many of my potentially regretful decisions this story starts at the pub A glorious drinking hole sat on the bank of the Thames in lovely leafy Richmond One where sunburnt paddleboarders and furious families in rowing boats rock up on a sunny summer’s day via the river As I clutched my pint I thought “that looks fun” Then my imagination got the better of me and I thought “wouldn’t it be funny if someone rocked up in a tiny boat with an oversized outboard on the back?” Then I remembered that there’s a slipway near my flat And I can get from there to said pub via a tiny boat with an oversized outboard on the back And that Honda makes outboard motors
And tiny boats And we have a Honda in the TG Garage that could potentially swallow a boat outboard and idiot in order to drive them to the water so they could go to the pub via a tiny boat with an oversized outboard on the back
A few phone calls Googles and weeks later I was at the helm of ‘Uniform’ a Highfield HX This six metre RIB Rigid Inflatable Boat was powered by a Honda bhp four stroke outboard and a long way from my initial stupidity See unbeknownst to me one needs a Powerboat II licence to be able to sail to the pub So two days and a very choppy trip to Cowes later I had one
After that I went on to Honda Power’s website which is like a very expensive Argos catalogue for your shed See Honda produces waaaay more than just cars Since it has manufactured over million ‘Power’ products From general purpose engines tillers generators snow throwers lawn mowers pumps jets boats and outboard engines Power has been an integral and often forgotten part of Honda’s overall business Which is mad Because like many of its cars they’re subtly cool and all extremely well engineered And to my surprise Honda was down with my floaty pub plan So they sent me some floaty pub bits a T ¡ Honwave RIB an outboard some lifejackets and a note of luck
Now the fact you can post a boat and put it in the back of a car still blows my mind But the Honwave is a packaging masterpiece a boat that goes in a bag and fits in the boot of your car In fact it fit annoyingly easily into the HR V’s cavernous and clever multipurpose litre boot When you have found somewhere to set sail all you
have to do is pop the electronic bootlid lob it out unfurl it and spend
minutes inflating it with a foot pump Which is easier than you’d think After that and a bit of breathless swearing you attach the seat strap down a jerry can in the middle and feed it to the outboard
Ah yes The outboard This is where my plan became a little trickier See I quickly worked out why people don’t rock up to pubs in tiny coastal tenders with huge outboards as they’re a lot heavier than they look kg kind of heavy Even so with a little assistance I got it on the back and set sail Where I rapidly realised a second reason people don’t rock up to pubs in tiny coastal tenders with huge outboards See bhp doesn’t sound a lot in the world of bhp hypercars but bhp or bhp is typically all you need for the kind of voyage I was embarking on The bhp engine was so smooth and powerful it was pretty much breaking the eight knot speed limit at tickover
But it also got me to the pub very quickly Where I had a drink And reflected on how versatile and clever Honda is And just like the HRV the outboard and motor were efficient practical and surprising But unlike the HRV they were fun