We were a touch disappointed by the rather vocal nature of the 138bhp diesel engine, particularly given the same unit’s fabulous refinement in the Accord. Even so, there’s no doubting its strong acceleration (0-60mph in 9.9sec), decent 118mph top speed and even spread of power, allowing relatively tall gearing to be carried off with ease – not something we’d be tempted to say about the 2.0-litre petrol model. Even in top gear, the tremendous 251lb ft of torque low down at 2000rpm means the FR-V will reach the motorway speed limit from 50mph in 9.5sec: an excellent achievement that not even the fleet-footed 2.0-litre diesel Focus C-Max can match.
It’s fairly frugal, too. On our touring route the Honda returned 36.2mpg, so 40mpg should be easily achieved by the less lead-footed. Even if you do choose to push it, you should always expect to put over 500 miles under the wheels between fills.
The FR-V even has a little up its sleeve for the enthusiast driver. Few people used to the habitually lacklustre handling standards of most MPVs will be less than delighted with the FR-V’s attitude on the open road. The dash-mounted gearlever is sportingly close to the driver and slashes around the ratios with precision and speed. Head for the hills and you’ll discover the FR-V turns in crisply, hands on grimly and does well to maintain its ride height over undulations, even with a full complement of passengers and luggage on board.
Our only real cause for concern over the FR-V’s dynamics is its braking. In the course of tough but entirely routine performance testing the pads started to smoke and there was considerable fade. In normal use, the middle pedal behaved entirely as it should, so we don’t think this is a serious issue, but we’d not be doing our job properly if we did not mention this apparent limitation here.