At the outset, those whose idea of fun it is to engage four low and scale vertical cliff faces need not get in line for Honda’s new CR-V. Like its earlier version, big bro doesn’t particularly enjoy getting his wheels all muddied up, so if you were hoping that off-road capabilities would be enhanced, wrong number. Put that fact aside, however, and you have an entirely new animal lurking under the familiar CR-V badge.
The old CR-V was a great car, but Honda received a fair amount of customer feedback that said their soft-roader looked...erm...a bit soft. It was highly unlikely that a CR-V buyer would enter it in the Raid De Himalaya, but it appeared that he wanted it to at least look like it could. That would explain the car’s butch new front, then. It’s certainly much more purposeful than the older version, with slightly wild-eyed contoured headlamps, fog lamps, a sporty three slat chrome grille, a muscular yet subtle bull bar and a neat skid plate. At the rear, it gets new taillamps that look superb and the car now comes shod with 16” alloys that greatly add to its character. While the old car would have entered a party and said ‘Excuse me, I hope I’m not being too much of a bother’, this one would probably wink at the hostess and grab a cocktail from a waiter. It probably wouldn’t win any beauty contests, not with those startled-frog headlamps, but the overall effect is certainly more eye-catching than its predecessor.
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