CarBrandLogos archive · Honda · 1995

HondaCR-V

A Civic underneath, an SUV on top: the recipe half the world now buys.

Photo: © M 93 · CC BY-SA 3.0 de

The story

A defining chapter in Honda history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Honda CR-V, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

By the mid-1990s buyers wanted the look and seating height of a four-wheel drive without the ride, thirst or steering of one. Honda's answer in 1995 was to build the body on Civic underpinnings, with a car platform, unibody construction and a front-drive layout that sent torque rearwards only when the front wheels slipped. It replaced the Crossroad, a rebadged Land Rover Discovery, and the Civic Shuttle Beagle, which tells you how unresolved Honda's thinking had been until then.

2007-2009 Honda CR-V Sport wagon 01 · OSX · Public domain

Design and engineering

Early cars had a folding plastic picnic table stowed in the boot floor and a tailgate that opened sideways with the spare wheel hung on it, details that fixed the model in people's memory more than the mechanical specification did. What sold it was that it drove like the family hatchback it was based on while offering a high seating position and a large flat load bay.

2003 Honda CR-V Sport wagon 02 · OSX · Public domain

In production

It was not the first compact crossover, but it was the one that made the formula normal, and every generation since has been bigger, quieter and more conventional. It is now among Honda's best-selling vehicles worldwide, built on several continents, and the template it set is the default shape of the modern car market.

1999-2001 Honda CR-V Sport wagon 04 · OSX · Public domain

At a glance