Honda CR-V Hybrid Racer is 800bhp V6 track weapon

Honda has revealed an utmost variant of the CR-V fitted with an 800bhp hybrid V6 borrowed from Indycar Series race cars.

Nicknamed the HPD [Honda Performance Development] Beast, the Honda CR-V Hybrid Racer is simply a "rolling laboratory" that has SUV bodywork draped over a tubular chassis.

The astir notable alteration implicit the modular CR-V is the powertrain: an electrified mentation of Indycar's 2.2-litre twin-turbocharged petrol V6 that utilises supercapacitors to store electricity.

It runs connected renewable fuels and generates astir 800bhp, according to an earlier Honda teaser video. By the clip its improvement is completed and uprated to the afloat 2.4 litres afforded by the caller Indycar rules, this is apt to emergence to the bid maximum of 900bhp.

The CR-V Hybrid Racer’s motorsport genealogy doesn't extremity there: it borrows its beforehand suspension from the latest Honda NSX GT3 racer, portion its rear suspension is taken from the existent Dallara-built Indycar single-seater.

From the loop enactment up, the bodywork is each archetypal CR-V, but it has been chopped halfway to let entree nether the rear-hinged motor clamshell. The doors person been chopped successful fractional and given Lamborghini-style butterfly hinges.

A Pikes Peak-style rear spoiler and shouty red-and-blue livery featuring Honda’s Indycar sponsors complete the assertive look.

David Salters, president and method manager for HPD, said: “This task is our rolling electrified laboratory to analyse wherever the talented men and women of HPD and Honda could spell with electrification, hybrid exertion and 100% renewable fuels.

“It epitomises Honda's fun-to-drive ethos, [it] showcases electrification and it conscionable rocks our car-culture roots and racing heritage.”

The CR-V Hybrid Racer volition marque its nationalist debut connected 3 March astatine the Indycar play opener astatine St Petersburg, Florida, and look astatine respective rounds thereafter.