Honda FRV dimensions

Honda already had its seven-seater (now six-seater) Stream MPV, which succeeded the excellent Shuttle. Then Honda’s Masaaki Tsunoda took his two kids for a ride in an old Cadillac, which just happened to have a three-seater bench in the front, like a Tokyo taxi. The kids loved it, both of them sitting together in the front with dad instead of one relegated to the back. So Tsunoda got hold of a FIAT Multipla and started working out how Honda could improve on its 3 + 3 seating concept.

He already had an ideal ‘flat floor’ platform, used in the Stream and the CR-V, and the 1.7 and 2.0 litre VTEC engines. The task was to fit two rows of three seats and make the whole thing more interesting than the Multipla and the new 7-seater Scenic, Touran and Corolla Verso.

So, like the Multipla, the centre front seat slides back further than the outer seats. Except in the FR-V it slides back a lot further. The backrest folds to form an armrest and table, or the squab unfolds to reveal useful cubbies. And there’s an oddments drawer underneath.

Though rear-facing baby seats aren’t advised, the centre front seat has ISOFIX fittings for a child seat, allowing small children to sit centrally in the safest part of the car and giving them a panoramic forward view through the windscreen. Ask any child as soon as they can speak and they’ll tell you that makes all the difference to travelling in a car. Instead of everything in front of them blotted out by a front seat head restraint, they can actually see what’s going on.