The 2000s were something of a golden decade for “tall hatchback” MPVs in Europe, and the excellent news for Japanese manufacturers was that that they had loads of home-market-optimized vehicles designed for space efficiency that could possibly be brought over to compete with the likes of the Renault Modus, Citroën Xsara Picasso and Hyundai Matrix. From my recent trip to the scrapyards of Northern England, here’s a discarded example of a flexible Honda that we never saw in North America: the FR-V.
What really makes this automobile stand out is its interesting seating arrangement. There is a row of three seats within the back…
And one other row of three seats within the front! The six-passenger setup was once commonplace in big, bench-seat-equipped Detroit sedans of fifty years ago, however it’s a tougher engineering challenge to do it in a small automobile that shares its platform with the Civic and CR-V. The strange-looking Fiat Multipla of the identical era had the same seating arrangement.
The center front seat bottom hinges forward to make a middle console.
The rear seats fold as much as make more cargo space, which is respectable even with the seats in use.
In Japan, this automobile was generally known as the Edix. It was built from the 2004 through 2011 model years.
Not bad-looking, but actually not the truck shape that took over the world soon enough.
Within the UK, the 2007 FR-V was available with a alternative of a 1.8-liter petrol engine or 2.2-liter turbodiesel. This one has the oil-burner, rated at 138 horsepower and 251 pound-feet.
This six-speed manual gearshift protruding of the dash is paying homage to the setup within the old Honda N600. There is not any room for a floor shifter with that middle seat, and column-shift manuals were long out of fashion by the 2000s, so this placement made sense.
The JDM TV commercials are good and frantic.
Sid the Rectangular dog gives the FR-V a three-bone rating.
Beanie Burgers throughout and Fizz Buckets to share, with Sid the Rectangular Dog getting the gherkins.
Top Gear broke the news of this automobile’s cancellation.
This Article First Appeared At www.autoblog.com
