Skip to main content

Honda stuffed an 800-HP IndyCar powertrain into the family-friendly CR-V

Honda CR-V's IndyCar engine: The result may be the most absurd, fastest, and track-ready SUV ever

Honda is a diverse company with a wide range of products that includes planes, boat engines, and motorcycles. The Japanese brand is best known for its reliable and well-built cars that, for the most part, are boring — except for the Civic Type R. Take the Honda CR-V, for example. It’s a class-leading SUV, but you’re not going to buy it for its thrilling performance. Leave it to Honda and some hysterical engineers without a budget to make a drool-worthy CR-V. All it took was for Honda to cram an 800-horsepower, hybrid powertrain from an IndyCar and create a deranged design. Honda describes the CR-V Hybrid Racer in the best way, calling it a “rolling electrified laboratory.”

Before we get into the CR-V Hybrid Racer, we’re going to try to rationalize its existence. IndyCar is introducing some new rules for the 2024 season. Honda, which first got into IndyCar in 1994, is getting ready for the upcoming 2024 season, where IndyCars will have to be electrified. To strum up some interest in the next era of IndyCar racing, Honda has come out with the CR-V Hybrid Racer, which the automaker is calling a “sneak preview.”

That explains why the CR-V Hybrid Racer looks like a chiseled Arnold Schwarzenegger and the regular CR-V is more Danny DeVito. Underneath the cartoonish exterior with the enormous wing, gigantic diffuser, wide fenders, and titanic front splitter, the CR-V Hybrid Racer features a tube-frame chassis. Then, there’s the twin-turbo 2.2-liter V6 engine that features a hybrid system. The engine is mated to an XTRAC 6-speed sequential transmission. Both of these components come directly from an Indy Car racer. The V6 engine also runs on 100% renewable race fuel that was developed by Shell for the 2023 IndyCar season.

Unlike the electrified IndyCars that are coming for the 2024 season, the CR-V Hybrid Racer has electrified power that comes from Skeleton Supercapacitors and an Empel MGU hybrid motor unit. It’s a unique hybrid system for the racy SUV.

Honda also sourced the CR-V Hybrid Racer’s rear suspension and brakes from an IndyCar. The front brakes and suspension are from an Acura NSX GT-3 Evo22. With Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 summer tires that measure 305/35 at the back, the SUV shouldn’t have a problem putting its power down.

As much as we would love to see a high-performance CR-V – this would make for a rad CR-V Type R – the CR-V Hybrid Racer isn’t that. It’s a one-off science experiment where the nerds are car people. It’s an incredible engineering exercise that could evolve over the future. The CR-V Hybrid Racer will make its debut at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg in Florida. The electrified SUV will also be at other IndyCar events where Honda will use it for on-track demonstrations.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Joel Patel
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Joel Patel is a former contributor for The Manual. His work has also been featured on Autoweek, Digital Trends, Autoblog…
The 9 best sports cars under $100k you can get
Six figures may not get you as much as it used to, but you can get one of these sports cars with that budget
2022 Jaguar F-Type front end angle from passenger's side parked on the side of a street with a glass building in the background.

Blame inflation, supply chain issues, or global issues that won't go away, but cars are way, way, way more expensive than they used to be. Unfortunately, inflated auto prices are a new trend that doesn't seem like it will be slowing down anytime soon. Despite this, if you're lucky enough to have $100,000 to spend on a high-performance sports car, you have some great sports cars under $100k to explore.
Are sports cars affordable? Yea right? While one wouldn't normally consider $100,000 sports cars affordable, shoppers who have some money to blow can find homegrown American muscle cars like the Dodge Challenger or exotics like the Lotus Emira on this budget. So, if you're seeking a sports car in this price range, from mega-powered muscle cars to mid-engine sports cars, here are the nine best sports cars under $100k.

Porsche 718 Cayman GTS 4.0 - $88,750
Unbelievably, $100,000 isn't enough to get into a base Porsche 911 anymore, but Porsche's loss is your gain because you can get a 718 Cayman GTS 4.0 for that money. The GTS 4.0 has the same flat-six engine found in the track-ready GT4. In this sports car, the 4.0-liter six-cylinder makes 300 horsepower and revs all the way to 7,000 rpm. Additionally, the motor is an ode to natural aspiration with rapid response time and a pure sound. 
Like other Porsches, what makes the GTS 4.0 so special is the way it handles and feels like a complete package. Shifts are excellent, handling is sublime, and the car feels like it can take beating after beating without an issue. So, whether you spend time on the track or the road, the GTS 4.0 feels special in either environment.  

Read more
Mercedes-Benz adds ChatGPT for in-car voice control
Mercedes-Benz is now offering ChatGPT for MBUX equipped cars
Mercedes-Benz ChatGPT interior

For those old enough to remember Skynet from the Terminator franchise, we are one step closer to seeing artificial intelligence coming online and taking over the world. At least, that's the conspiracy theorist side of things. Of course, if you are a bit younger, another movie called iRobot showed us that AI can lead us into a new understanding of what it means to be human (after some dramatic Will Smith-inspired action ensues).

So it should not be surprising that a new press release from Mercedes-Benz revealing they have begun adding ChatGPT via Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to over 900,000 vehicles is somewhat polarizing.

Read more
Ford increases BlueCruise subscription to $800 per year
Ford BlueCruise subscription bumped up to $800 per year
Ford Mustang Mach-E

In 2021, Ford introduced the BlueCruise on the Mustang Mach-E and the F-150. It’s also available in the 2022 Lincoln Navigator, but it’s marketed under a different name — the Lincoln ActiveGlide. Ford delivered on its promise to make the BlueCruise or ActiveGlide one of the most advanced self-driving software currently available. More succinctly, you can drive your Mustang Mach-E or F-150 without putting your hands on the wheel for over 100,000 miles of highways across North America. The Ford BlueCruise will also warn you if you take your eyes off the road so you don't get distracted while it's in self-drive mode.

When the Ford BlueCruise was released, the subscription cost was $600 for three years or $200 per year. If your Mustang Mach-E or F-150 doesn’t come with BlueCruise as a standard feature, you would need to pay $995 to install the hardware. However, Ford has recently increased BlueCruise subscription to $2,100 for three years.

Read more