The SUV Central

There is little to doubt that India is an SUV crazy country. Now Honda has launched the all new CR-V. But is it better than the Hyundai Tucson and VW Tiguan? We find out

Let’s begin by saying that you are in the market for a large SUV and had zeroed in on the Hyundai Tucson and the Volkswagen Tiguan. Both SUVs here fall nearly in the same price bracket and both are five seaters and nearly the right size for our congested cities. Both SUVs also come with AWD technology. But just when you thought of making the down payment, Honda launched the CR-V. Now the CR-V is a strong brand in India and a question arises; should you get a seven seater instead? Damn! Back to square one.While ‘wants’ keep fluctuating, in most cases the budget remains constant. So let’s start by checking out the prices. The Volkswagen Tiguan in Highline guise comes at an OTR price of Rs 36.82 lakh while the Hyundai Tucson GLS AT variant sells at Rs 30.66 lakh OTR. The new CR-V though in this range is available for Rs 36.55 lakh OTR. However, this is the 2WD variant.

EXTERIOR

The new CR-V looks ultra modern to start with. It comes with pot loads of chrome on the grille and then it gets rather sleek LED headlights complete with LED day time running lights. The front bumper houses the LED fog lights. Overall the CR-V looks muscular and the flared wheel arches add to the SUV design. The large 18in alloys also look smart.