You Likely Have Never Seen a Honda CR-V Like This, Uh, Racing Version With 800 HP

Honda Performance Development (HPD) is the automaker’s special outfit for developing performance variants of its vehicles, including off-roaders and racecars. That includes the Honda Civic Si and  Type R racing variants, the Honda Ridgeline Sport pickup truck trim, and over at Acura, HPD has gotten its mitts on the TLX sedan and NSX sports car. But now HPD is turning its attention to something it’s ignored up until now, the plucky little Honda CR-V SUV.

So far, we’ve only seen the group of teaser images included here, but what those show is quite tantalizing. Honda announced today that HPD’s CR-V will be a hybrid model good for as much as 800 horsepower, also working with Honda’s Auto Development Center (ADC) and North America Auto Design Division. It’s not clear how the CR-V Hybrid makes that sort of power yet—in stock form, it puts out an entirely ordinary 204 hp—but it’s certainly a mix of a combustion engine and at least one electric motor, though we’re suspicious there could even be two e-motors at that power output.

The recently-updated base production Honda CR-V only boasts a 1.5-liter combustion engine good for 190 hp and 179 lb-ft of torque; the updated CR-V Hybrid upgrades to a new 2.0-liter engine paired with a torquey e-CVT as well as an additional electric motor for that aforementioned 204 hp, so HPD has a long way to go to get it up to 800 hp.

It’s clear from the teaser images we’ve gotten so far that this new racer’s design will have very little in common with the actual production version, save for the lights and badges, thanks to some visually apparent wild aerodynamic carbon fiber bodywork. Honda describes the racer as a “project vehicle” meant for the track, and it will be revealed in full on February 28.

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