Handsomely hewn

Crisp slits of saturnine searchlight spear silently through the somnambulant gloaming of an East Midlands early morn. All at once the diminishing dawn darkness is rent asunder by a pair of hunting headlights, proudly on-point at the prow of a swiftly shifting shape that spears with impudent fantastical ease across the slowly wakening world of the cruel countryside near Kettering.

For the committed wheelsmith this is prime business time, cuddling up to the cusp of sunrise and making helming hay before the celestial fireball breaks cover. My steed for this early a.m. assault on the unploughed metaphorical soil of a fresh Friday is a familiar set of letters roundly remixed for the ‘13 model year in the handsomely hewn shape of the brand new Honda CR-V.

When I set off the central locking at shock o’clock this morning the first impression was the sturdy stench of quality and the perfect precision that only Soichiro’s squad can offer. Yet this sharply suited soft-roader is no soccer mom sludge sledge for it aims to inject more S without losing the UV. Question is, can this beautifully baked biscuit slip smoothly into a pair of dancing trousers?

This particular ‘V may suckle from the treacle teat but there are no complaints about the girth of grunt that accompanies its distantly dieselly thunderings. Powerful progress is a given, and it’s assisted by a gearshift as slick as a silk sash soaked in sunflower oil. So the powertrain is packed with pertinent promise but it will all be as pointless as a punched pencil if the chassis isn’t sassy.

Initial reports are good as the suspension sucks up the terrors of tawdry Tarmacadam like a Russian hooker with a straw. Rude ruts and perfidious potholes are smoothed off like a well-polished pebble as the hungry Honda devours devious backtop. It’s time to open the box marked ‘bends’. Sinuous steering makes an early announcement of CR-V’s intention to party, commands from the tiller are taken without question, turn-in as crisp as an Egyptian cotton pillowcase full of Quavers. Armed with such action, every curve becomes a no-appointment-necessary meeting with Mr Apex.

With the ante upped, I chucked a fistful of mph into the pot and throw the Honda headlong at the most splendiferous switchbacks I can seek yet still this fecund family car grips like a drowning man to the side of a dinghy. On one especially S-shaped complex I slammed shut the gas at the corner’s crescendo and felt the tall tail begin to step wide. I simply caught it with a dab of oppo and I was away.

The Honda CR-V 2.2 i-DTEC SE-T is a bitch, and I spanked it.