Honda HR-V: A bigger, if not entirely better, fit
People are so catty on the Internet. There it has been suggested that I only care about expensive sports cars and that I test mass-market entries only under duress. That’s crazy. I don’t care about expensive sports cars.
The mass production of automobiles, however, fascinates me: The oceanic swells of human ingenuity, from design studios to rail yards; the coordinated dance of supply and logistics; and, above all, the making itself, the drama of the assembly-hall floor, where house-sized stamping machines ring out part after part in the din of creation.
Give me $10 million and a place to work and I can build a single car in about five years, a car for which NHTSA would certainly lock me up.
A million cars? Hmm.
It’s all got to be so clever, doesn’t it? Take the 2016 Honda HR-V, a subcompact crossover produced in Honda’s
7267,
new factory in Celaya, Mexico. Built on the same line as the Honda Fit and using much of the same componentry, the new HR-V is 9.1 inches longer than the Fit (on a 3.2-inch longer wheelbase), while about the same amount (10.3 inches) shorter than CR-V. The Fit and CR-V are hugely popular, globally, so it stands to reason something in the middle ought to be, too. Product spread, you know.
From the board room, the plan must have looked flawless. But the HR-V missed its to-market date last fall due to disruptions at Celaya — railcars may or may not have been nicked—and a shortage of skilled workers. Fun fact: While automotive production is skyrocketing in Mexico, the rail and shipping infrastructure to export the cars has been overwhelmed. Between this and that, Honda was left with an HR-V-shaped hole in its showroom until late spring.
An aside: Do you know what would be a very good board game? CAR CZAR, the game of global automobile domination. Players can go from being a donkey-riding nobody to being Enzo Ferrari. Can you crush souls like Piech? Stumble like Winterkorn? Fumble like Marchionne?
There you go. Jump ball, nerds.
This is a fish bowl filled with tiny, adorable piranhas. Kia Soul, Nissan Juke, Jeep Renegade, Mazda CX-3, Chevy Trax, Buick Encore, Fiat 500X. As a group, all these subcompact crossover-style vehicles are wretched with personality, four-wheeled emojis, low buck and high style as befits a younger audience.
But the HR-V is surprisingly not cute. I’m not saying your baby is ugly, madam. I’m saying your baby is ugly to me.
That seems like an unforced error for Honda design, considering the target audience and price point ($22,045, as tested). What happened? The first Fits (2007 model year) were so cute people wanted to nurse them.
So, yes, it’s a fat Fit: 2.8 inches wider and 3.2 inches taller. The extra real estate adds 7.7 cubic feet, totaling 24.3 cubes of cargo space behind the second-row seats. The HR-V’s 60/40 second-row seat backs fold down easily to create a fully flat load of respectable size (58.8 cubic feet). Like the Fit, the HR-V’s “Magic Seat” manages this trick thanks to the fuel tank’s location under the front seats.
If the exterior is a tad unlovable, I respect the effort to bring an upscale calm to the cabin, decked in black knit textile and sculpted in orderly shapes. Things are unfussy here. The HR-V dash makes the most of a design opportunity overlooked by other car makers. The climate vent is a long, thin vent with directional vanes, surrounded by a pica-thin line of brightwork. It’s something you might see in a Gandini-designed supercar from the ’70s.
Other upscale grace notes are the one-touch power moonroof; the electric parking brake; power windows and doors; push-button start; automatic headlamps; and the 7-inch touch screen display for audio, including Bluetooth and smartphone functions, as well as the multiview rear camera. Then there’s the sudden, sideways-looking LaneWatch blind-spot display, which comes on when you signal for a turn and is way more distracting than any blind spot. Ahh!
Also standard are redundant controls for audio on the steering wheel. You will need them. Both flat-panel touch screens, for the climate and the smart functions, are hopelessly unresponsive and prissy.
Being Fit+, and weighing 375 pounds more, the HR-V needed more power. Instead, Honda gave it its high-spooling, soft-punching 1.8-liter SOHC in-line four, naturally aspirated, of course, producing a very unconvincing 127 pound-feet of torque at 4,300 rpm. The vast majority of these cars will go out the door with an automatic transmission, a continuously variable transmission, which I’m sure will offer its own drama.
Our test car was fitted with the rare six-speed manual, which demanded a touch with the pedals somewhere between deft and cruel. If you want to leave from a stop briskly you must will yourself to rev it out, bro—vruuurrrnnn, Hondas say — and then feather the clutch. You must learn to love the sound of a Honda four-cylinder revving its eyeballs out. If at any point the revs fall below 2,000 or so, the engine takes a nap.
I am generally not an advocate of aftermarket tuning, especially if you don’t know what you are doing. That includes practically the entire aftermarket industry. But, yeah, if I were a consumer in love with the HR-V, I would consider a light kick in the engine software, maybe a cold-air box, anything to stir up more torque. Car and Driver logged a 0-60 mph acceleration of 8.4 seconds for the 2WD six-speed. Once at cruising speed in sixth gear, the HR-V becomes quiet and composed, which comes as a bit of surprise given all the whirring and herniating that it took to get you there.
The HR-V’s underpinnings (front struts and rear beam axle) are comfortably firm and the car feels well planted. Our 2WD EX didn’t embarrass itself through corners. Despite the crossover-style silhouette the HR-V doesn’t have much more ground clearance (6.7 inches) than a Civic, so the center of gravity is low and familiarly like a hatchback sedan.
The hole card for the HR-V is safety. The HR-V earned a Five Star overall rating from the feds, thanks in part to Honda’s ever-evolving ACE crash-structure design.
The HR-V packs a lot of car into its subcompact shadow. No, it’s not a meat-hanging midengine Italian sports car made in single digits. It’s a zillion-unit economy ute built in Mexico.
Scale. Yeah, baby. That’s sexy.
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