- Honda just announced some key changes to its 2025 line, including a TrailSport-trim CR-V
- There’s a refresh in the cards, too, for the subcompact HR-V, though details are scant
- The automaker is also aiming to launch a new Prelude sports coupe by year’s end
Heading into the 2025 calendar year, suits at Honda have spilled a few beans about what is in the hopper for new product. Let’s start with the most important: the CR-V. Changes to the CR-V are always big news, given that model is the bread-and-butter product for many of the brand’s dealerships.
This year, expect to see Honda apply the TrailSport trim to its best-selling crossover, creating a foil to machines like the Subaru Forester Wilderness and Toyota RAV4 Trail (or Woodland, if you prefer a hybrid powertrain).
For those unfamiliar, the “TrailSport” badge has begun cropping up on other all-wheel-drive Honda machines, including the two-row Passport and not-a-truck Ridgeline. The brand has upped the ante with this trim recently, adding aggressively flared fenders and trail-ready wheels wrapped in knobby all-terrain tires on the upcoming 2026 Passport, for example.
Here’s hoping designers do the same or at least similar with the CR-V TrailSport instead of just slapping a few stickers on and calling it a day. Given lessons learned from the first tepid whack Honda gave at the TrailSport can a couple of years ago, there’s a good chance the trim details will be meaningful, as they are on the Passport.
Also mentioned in plans for the coming year are as-yet undescribed changes to the little HR-V crossover. Honda says there will be “styling and technology enhancements” to make sure the scamp remains competitive in its segment, meaning there will likely be changes to features such as lighting signatures, paint choices, wheel designs, and other (relatively) cost-effective but noticeable alterations. There is no mention of migrating the TrailSport trim to the HR-V.
Keep in mind Honda is also committing itself to plunking the Prelude in showrooms by the end of this year, marking the long-awaited reintroduction of an entertaining two-door coupe to this brand. That it’s a hybrid doesn’t dampen our enthusiasm one bit.
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