The occasions they’re a-changing in motorsport as hybrid and electrical energy proceed to take over. Not desirous to be left behind, IndyAutomobile will lastly make the swap to hybrid energy beginning in 2024. Ahead of IndyAutomobile’s electrification, Honda wished to point out off its new hybrid powertrain in one of the best ways it knew: a race-ready CR-V, in fact.
In case you missed it:
Honda teased this track-ready CR-V Hybrid beast earlier this month, asserting that engineers at Honda Performance Development (HPD) had been engaged on an 800-horsepower SUV. Now, the covers have come off the completed product.
Honda says the winged-and-flared crossover is successfully a rolling lab for the automaker’s new hybrid IndyAutomobile powertrain. This signifies that the acquainted CR-V physique now comprises Honda’s 2.2-liter, twin-turbocharged V6, coupled to an Empel electrical motor-generator unit and a Skeleton supercapacitor power storage system, all sitting behind the motive force rather than the rear seats and trunk. Yep: IndyAutomobile energy in a household crossover. That’s bonkers.
G/O Media might get a fee
According to early estimates, the brand new hybrid powertrain kicks out greater than 800 hp mixed. By the time the engine is able to race within the 2024 IndyAutomobile season, that quantity might be near 900 hp.
“This project vehicle is an Indycar ‘beast’ in Honda CR-V ‘sheep’s clothing’,” David Salters, president and technical director for Honda Performance Development, stated in a press launch. “The CR-V Hybrid Racer is our ‘rolling electrified laboratory,’ to investigate where the talented men and women of HPD and Honda could go with electrification, hybrid technology and 100 percent renewable fuels. It epitomizes Honda’s fun-to-drive ethos, showcases electrification and it just rocks our car culture roots and racing heritage! We present the CR-V Hybrid Racer – aka ‘The HPD Beast’!”
To create this new beast, Honda did extra than simply stuff a further 600 hp into a CR-V Hybrid. Sure, the greenhouse, windshield and higher physique panels on the present automotive have remained inventory, however the remainder of the automobile has been closely modified.
Engineers at HPD snuck a full customized tube body beneath the CR-V, and all of the bodywork under the beltline is customized carbon-fiber. The HPD Beast will get the entrance suspension from an Acura NSX GT-3 Evo22 race automotive, and the rear suspension straight out of a current-generation Indy automotive. To cool that twin-turbo V6, the CR-V even makes use of an Indy automotive’s radiator.
When all that energy must be delivered to a halt, a set of Brembo disc brakes does the heavy lifting. Up entrance is a pair of 15-inch rotors from the Acura NSX race automotive, whereas the rear has customized 14-inch rotors.
That customized bodywork offers the CR-V aggressive fender flares and all method of aerodynamic tips to maintain it planted when it goes full tilt, together with an unlimited rear wing and entrance splitter.
It’s a reasonably formidable machine that sounds prefer it’ll be fairly the spectacle to see on monitor, which is precisely the place Honda plans to take this rolling lab. According to the automaker, the CR-V racer will make its debut at IndyAutomobile’s season-opening Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, Florida, earlier than showing at seven future Indycar meets.
Here’s the total checklist of races the place the Honda HPD Beast will seem. Go test it out for your self — possibly it’ll encourage you to do one thing wild with your individual household hauler.
- Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, Florida: March third to fifth
- Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach: April 14th to sixteenth
- Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix: April twenty eighth to thirtieth
- Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio: June thirtieth to July 2nd
- Honda Indy Toronto: July 14th to sixteenth
- Big Machine Music City Grand Prix in Nashville: August 4th to sixth
- Grand Prix of Portland: September 1st to third
- Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey: September eighth to tenth
Source: jalopnik.com