The new Sport version of the HR-V is Honda’s fastest SUV. Does that make it the family model of choice for keen drivers?
The ramp-up of Honda’s sporting trim continues. We’ve had the Civic Sport and, last year, the Jazz Sport as an unlikely entrant into the warm hatch sphere, and now it’s the turn of the HR-V. The Japanese firm is introducing the range-topping Sport variant not long after the HR-V was given a mid-life fettling – one that was almost entirely focused on gently moving it closer to the latest CR-V visually. But Honda is treating the Sport moniker more seriously than some car makers, having given the car a performance upgrade to suit.The recipe is simple on paper: take the already fine-driving HR-V and squeeze the 179bhp 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol motor from the Civic Sport under its bonnet. This has turned it into the fastest SUV Honda makes – although the relatively small and low-slung HR-V stretches that definition a bit.Engineers didn’t just shoehorn a gutsier motor under the bonnet and send it on its way, however. The Sport introduces what Honda calls synaptic damping control – a fancy phrase for uprated dampers aimed at sharpening the car’s body movements without ruining the ride. There’s also retuned variable-ratio steering alongside the improvements to the noise insulation and the active noise reduction system found in the regular HR-V.
Source: Autocar
