Finally, the HR-V is launched

If a vehicle’s success is judged by how filled the order books are, then Honda has yet another success in their hands. The number of orders that the HV-R had accumulated prior to the launch is equivalent to a four-month waiting list. Yikes! So, should you throw your number in the hat and wait for one? Our Arvind has driven it in the hilly roads of Chiang Mai, you can now flip to page 98 to read about it. Or, continue if you want to know the HR-V that’s specified for our market.

So, the HR-V comes on the same platform as the City and the Jazz, which means that the rear seats and cargo hold are just as malleable. It is at the front that the HR-V’s design departs from the other two. It looks good, having a high transmission tunnel that rise up to the centre stack lends of the cockpit-feel for the driver. Honda went as far as to make the cockpit feel snug by shaving off millimeters from the driver’s side only to add them back to the front passenger in the form of living space.

As for in-car tech, the full spec HR-V comes with a seven-inch touchscreen LCD, touch panel air conditioning, SIRI eyes free mode (yes, iOS users can now talk to Siri while driving while Android-ers shall be contented with talking to themselves), HDMI ports and a gimmicky ambient meter with seven colours to choose from. The exterior looks just as good as the interior. Again, the full spec gets the LED headlights and daytime running lights while the mid- and low-spec will make do with halogens. But no matter the spec, there are four dress-up packages for the HR-V – SMART UTILITY, URBANE UTILITY, TOUGH ADVANCE and SPORT AERO – which come are different price points ranging from RM1650 right up to RM3950.

Getting the car moving is the responsibility of a 1.8-litre Earth Dreams engine taken and tinkered from the Civic. The CVT is the same you’ll find in the Jazz and City but tweaked to suit the larger powerplant. The engine churns out 140bhp at 6,500rpm and 172Nm at 4,300rpm.