Road Test
Honda FR-V (04-) 2.2 i-CTDi SE 5dr MPV
Test date Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Price as tested £17,730
For Interior packaging, space, decent, handling by MPV standards
AgainstDiesel engine refinement, brake fade
For all their many talents, it is the capacity for innovation rather than invention that best characterises the Japanese approach to car-making. They’ll see a spark of brilliance in a germ of an idea and apply it with such blinding clarity that the result is usually neater, cleverer and just plain better than anyone had dreamt was possible.
So don’t run away with the idea that the new six-seat Honda FR-V is a ground-breaker: Fiat had a six-seater on sale over 45 years ago and a 3+3 ever since the ugly but inspired Multipla first broke cover in 1998. True to form, the FR-V is here to refine that concept and realise its true potential. And, as we shall see, with a few sizeable caveats, Honda has done a worthwhile job rather well.
The FR-V went on sale with either 1.7-litre or 2.0-litre petrol power, and Honda’s acclaimed 2.2-litre turbodiesel joins the line-up this week. Prices range from £14,880 for the entry-level 1.7 SE to £18,000 for the diesel in upmarket Executive specification. The diesel will be the clear best-seller of the range, and so it is with this engine and in £17,300 SE guise that we are testing it.
The FR-V’s greatest appeal lies not in what it has, but in what it doesn’t have; a third row of seats. By seating three across both front and back rows, it provides enough seating for most users of mid-size MPVs most of the time without the unavoidable problems of weight, space inefficiency and awkward access inherent in conventional three-row seven-seat layouts. But perhaps most compelling to the parents and grandparents who will almost exclusively buy this car is that their descendants will not be included among the impact-absorbing properties of the car’s rear crash structure. Rear-end shunts are among the most terrifying accidents of all: watching in the mirror as some myopic moron comes up the inside lane, hurtling into the most important things in your life.
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