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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 1.5-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 10.3 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 60mpg. 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 HX6. This six-metre RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) was powered by a Honda 133bhp four-stroke outboard and a long way from my initial stupidity. See, unbeknownst to me, one needs a Powerboat II licence
