Our view:
This is one of those cars that we cannot comprehend but we also happen to really like; it's a case of heart most definitely ruling head if you're going to try and assess it properly. When we
first drove it in Portugal, we found the Honda HR-V Sport to be a surprisingly talented performance machine, blessed with a willing engine, another cracking Honda manual gearbox (the shift action is exceptional), impressive handling manners considering its height and yet all the usability/comfort/practicality of any regular
HR-V.
And we can now say that all of those attributes have held up to further scrutiny, following a week-long test in the UK that took in almost 650 miles and 16 hours of driving on a wide variety of roads. While no B-segment crossover is particularly exciting, not even the HR-V (accepting it is nevertheless one of our favourites in this class), there's a certain appeal about having a vehicle that looks this inconspicuous which can seriously surprise some other road users; yes, man in (presumably a) 230hp
Audi TT Coupe on the A404(M), we're talking to you, trying your luck and getting it all horribly wrong. Not happy; he was
not happy at all.
So, beyond the childish glee of taking other unsuspecting cars to the cleaners from time to time, what are the merits of the Honda? Well, the HR-V Sport is a handsome enough little thing and it has a very pleasant cabin. Not only do you get the intelligent Magic Seats in the back and a 448-litre boot to play with, but with the Sport's signature red leather highlights coming into play then it's pretty easy on the eye. We also love the way Honda has managed to make 'old-fashioned' analogue dials look modern in a digital-instrument-cluster age, simply by making the main speedo three-dimensional in appearance, but there's another object lesson here in the dangers of trying to partly digitise a plainer binnacle - as the HR-V's blue-LCD trip computer display in the right-hand dial looks particularly dated now. Ditto Honda's mediocre infotainment, about the Sport's most obvious cabin failing, although there's hope on this score as Honda seems to have upped its game with the system seen in the
e city car, so that should soon filter into the rest of the marque's product line-up.
The Sport is perfectly amenable as an everyday motor, as well. The engine is tractable and benign at lower revs, providing good, torquey shove and proving admirably quiet. The ride's fantastic on the 18-inch black alloys, because you still get 50-profile sidewalls on those and therefore the compliance is excellent. As adept as the HR-V Sport is when motoring around towns and urban areas, it's just as at home on the motorway, where clever gearing gives it useful in-gear acceleration. And the Honda should prove economical too, because we saw 41.7mpg overall with a best of 48mpg on local A-roads (it couldn't quite match this return on a longer motorway run, possibly because we felt like we had to waste that aforementioned Audi TT, among others, while
en route).
But it doesn't let you down when you want to have some fun. While it never has the hard-edged, crackling high-revs soundtrack of some of the
legendary VTEC screamers of Honda's past, there's nevertheless an appealingly fruity induction and exhaust note to the 1.5-litre turbocharged four-pot, which makes the HR-V Sport feel every bit as fast as the numbers that quickly rack up on its speedo. You'll now also be positively revelling in the precise action of the gearlever, while the brakes and the damping are about spot-on for a vehicle of this size and mass which can travel as rapidly as it does. The main bugbear with regards the kinematics is steering which is something and nothing, providing accurate responses but little in the way of meaningful feel or heft.
Still, as B-segment crossovers are among the dullest modern machines to drive, that the HR-V transforms from run-of-the-mill fare in its regular guises to a sort of jacked-up warm hatch as the Sport is most rewarding. There are obviously a few areas where Honda could've polished the package a little more carefully, but otherwise this is a thoroughly likeable machine.
And one for which we can think of no defined buying demographic whatsoever. Seriously, who is going to plump for the Honda HR-V Sport? Unless you've always been an enormous aficionado of the Japanese company's smallest crossover-SUV (and even though we readily admit we like and admire it in its standard forms), we can't imagine for a single second that there's anyone who would admit to such a thing and so there's not a fanbase in place that might potentially be clamouring for a warm/performance derivative. Hondamentalists (like us) are also going to be looking elsewhere for their kicks, too, and that's where the
Civic Sport with exactly the same 182hp engine becomes oh-so-pertinent. As it starts from £23,695, a whopping £4,145 less than the HR-V Sport. Unless you regularly need to carry tall ferns in your rear footwells, thus necessitating the extra expense of the HR-V for its Magic Seats, then that's simply too big a price gap to ignore.
Because, yes, the HR-V Sport's biggest drawback is that it's a bit expensive. Remembering that, for all its interior space, smart rear seats and big boot, this is a B-segment crossover, getting on for £30,000 as tested is a tad rich (albeit, not as rich as what MINI would dare to charge for its fast 4x4, granted). The HR-V is £27,840 as standard and the only option on it was the Polished Metal metallic paint at £525, but considering you can have a full-on,
275hp C-segment hot hatch for a fiver less than £30k, asking £28,365 for a 182hp Honda SUV-a-like would take a serious amount of blinkered justification on the part of a buyer to truly rationalise it.
It's a very, very good car, this Honda. And we have thoroughly enjoyed its talents, on the two occasions we've had some extended time in its company. But it's nothing like exciting or desirable enough to merit its price tag, nor does it boast the sort of undeniable charisma that might permit us to overlook its handful of other minor issues and rate it quite as highly as something like the
Ford Ranger Raptor - another preposterously expensive machine for what it is, that looks somewhat pointless on the face of it but which you can't help but lust after nonetheless.
So our conclusion is this: we really like the HR-V Sport. As big fans of Honda, we're glad the company decided to build it, we're delighted with the excellence of the marque's execution of the idea, and we're happy to say it's demonstrably the best B-segment crossover you could possibly buy if you've got even an ounce of excitement still running through your veins. But we also kind of can't see the point of it, nor can we fathom out precisely
who will be taking Honda up on its kind offer of a high-riding, 182hp shopping trolley.
