It was April Fools’ Day, so Honda UK played the fool and chopped the top from its most popular SUV to create the CR-V Roadster.
HONDA’S UNLIKELY CONVERTIBLE
It was April Fools’ Day, so Honda UK played the fool and chopped the top from its most popular SUV to create the CR-V Roadster.
Completely unrelated to the S660, a little Honda roadster sold in Japan, the alfresco CR-V has no roof whatsoever, so its fabric canopy can only be a “fitment” of imagination.
According to the vehicle’s imaginary project leader by the name of Eipurirufuru (“April Fool” in Japanese), “This CR-V opens up an entirely new non-existent market. Our sales target is somewhat conservative to start with, at zero cars, but we are confident that once the minor glitches are ironed out, such as the lack of roof and the fact it is totally structurally unsound, the CR-V Roadster will fly out of showrooms.”
The closest thing to Honda’s humorous hoax would be the Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet (right), but it wasn’t a cool joke only for the month of April – the crossover convertible was produced for (thankfully) just the US market a few years ago. More freaky than funky, the oddball soft-top SUV made the 370Z Roadster look like a rockstar.
SUVS POWERED BY DROPPINGS AND COINS
Honda wasn’t the only automaker with a sense of humour marking April Fools’ Day last month. MG Motor and Seat also thought up funny, fake projects to provide comic relief in the serious business of selling new cars.
MG announced a revolutionary new engine fuelled by alpaca poop in pellet form.
Apparently the result of several years’ research, the poop-powered powerplant made its debut in the ZS, MG’s value-packed SUV.
The British-Chinese car company said that it looks forward to the day when people resign horsepower to the history books and refer to alpaca power, a sustainable energy source that reduces vehicle emissions and reuses alpaca excrement.
Equally revolutionary but less smelly is Seat’s Arona Copper Edition, which features a coin slot in the dashboard. Deposit a copper penny to activate the Arona’s engine and drive off in the world’s only car powered by loose change.
Penny-pinchers on a shoestring motoring budget would appreciate this coin-operated Spanish SUV, which costs mere pennies to run but still offers plenty of equipment, such as 17- inch alloy wheels, metallic paintwork, excellent infotainment and coppercoloured cabin trim.
NOISE-CANCELLING OF A DIFFERENT KIND
Parents disturbed by their children’s backseat bickering would be foolish to overlook QuarrelKancel, Skoda’s innovative noise-cancelling headrest system launched on April Fools’ Day as an exclusive option for the Karoq SUV.
The Czech tech solution to the problem of sibling squabbles during a car ride was conceived by Skoda’s Professor Si Lence and his colleague, Dr April Furst.
QuarrelKancel uses special speakers built into the front headrests, which monitor and respond to the in-cabin child decibel level. When activated by the harried daddy via the infotainment screen’s “Shhh!” button, the technology generates unique sound waves which block out the bickering and allow the parents seated in front to continue the road journey in relative peace. QuarrelKancel also has an automatic mode, which listens for the first signs of a juvenile argument and promptly cancels out the fracas.
