Honda reveals Urban SUV concept

Fittingly, Honda has chosen the Detroit Motor Show to show off the styling cues of its upcoming baby SUV via this neat little concept called the ‘Urban SUV'. Why fittingly? Because it's all very RoboCop at the front; Detroit's fictional crime-fighting champion.

Details are scarce, but we do know this Urban concept previews a small SUV based around the Honda Jazz platform; the Jazz remember, sits on Honda's Global Compact Series underpinnings.

Interesting thing to note however, is how huge the actual concept is in size. Sure, it might preview a small SUV, but in reality this thing looks closer to a Mazda CX-5 in size. Honda tells us the urban concept is "designed to provide aesthetic cues", and will eventually see service all over the globe.

Funky thing, isn't it? Expect some of the concept car gloss to be ironed out ahead of production - it'll be built in Mexico - but it's still a clean design. And as we've opined on these pages before, you better get used to these tiny SUVs, they're slowly becoming all the rage...

The SUV will be powered by Honda's ‘Earth Dreams' technology, which is a fancy way of saying ‘it's very green'. Remember that 1.6-litre diesel Civic we drove last month? That was an ‘Earth Dreams' car, and it produced just 94g/km of CO2 and returned some 78.5mpg. Efficient.

Inside we're told there are ‘magic seats' (where the cushion hinges upright, like a cinema seat, to accomodate tall objects. Not seats capable of pulling rabbits out of hats, sadly), and you can expect the final production version to arrive sometime early next year. Like it?

Vijay Pattni