Honda CR-V: The Comeback Car

When the Honda CR-V first launched in India, the year was 2003. Cricket wasn’t 20 overs a side, George Bush was still screwing with the world in his first term as President, there were still 2 years for YouTube to be launched and three years for Twitter to be unleashed, Pluto was still a full-sized planet, India still hadn’t won an Olympic Gold Medal, SUVs still had their spare tyres on their tailgate, Leopold’s Cafe didn’t have bullet holes on its wall and petrol cost ₹33. The world has changed a bit in the last decade, but not the good people at Honda.

For them, petrol still costs ₹33, which seems to be the only imaginable reason for them to launch a petrol-only SUV in times when petrol costs 69 odd bucks. And this is probably the biggest disservice they could have done to the car, which was one of the most aspirational SUVs on the Indian roads for most of early 21st century. Honda must be counting on the gap between diesel and petrol reducing in India, but tragically, the prices will take at least 5 years to overcome the current ₹20 difference.

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The jungle itself has become an overcrowded place and just about to become even more crowded as the whole world and their grandmother try and cash in on India’s SUV obsession. Moreover, even the likes of Mitsubishi whose dual-tone Pajero still sits in garages in Punjab alongside Ferrari’s has all but failed to flog its Pajero Sport. The new Honda CR-V then has its work cut out for itself.

It needs to be cheaper, it needs to thrammed up the gullet with features and also handle like a dream, but does it tick those boxes? It does and it doesn’t. It’s a good 41,000 cheaper than the base version of the Fortuner, but it is also about 1.7 lacs more expensive than the Mahindra owned M-Class based, SsangYong Rexton and even the Chevrolet Captiva. It does come with the Honda dedication to fuel economy, which is the highest of the lot. True it handles like a boat, but it also comes with cruise control even on the base model and a fully adjustable steering wheel along with 6 air bags and EBT.

The car itself comes in two engine trims – a 2litre petrol with the option of a 6-speed manual or a 5-speed automatic transmission and a 2.4litre petrol reined in by a 5-speed automatic transmission (the BHP gain is 13 and 29 bhp respectively). This also means that the 1997cc engine is the puniest of the 18-22 lakh SUVs and more powerful than only the Chevrolet Captiva. But apart from the Mitsubishi Outlander, the rest of the cars we were looking at for the sake of this comparison were all 7-seaters compared to the 5-seater Honda CR-V. This will make an already tricky situation worse for Honda – because the CR-V will be competing not with the 7-seaters, but with the 5-seaters, who are given as much attention as Nawazzuddin Siddiqi in Aatma – and no one deserves that.

From the April 2013 issue of FHM India.