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Honda TR-V Looks CGI-Ready to Give Maverick Some Unibody Truck Headaches

Honda is trying to confuse the world just a tiny bit with the jump between HR-V and ZR-V nameplates across the North American, Chinese, or European markets. Alas, some people do see beyond the ruse and have their agenda.
Honda TR-V unibody hybrid compact pickup truck rendering by KDesign AG 26 photos
Photo: KDesign AG / Behance
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So, let us set the record straight. There is a global, third-generation subcompact HR-V version, which arrived in Japan as the second-generation Vezel and is sold only outside North America. Meanwhile, the latter region is getting a separate, larger model for the 2023MY, based on the eleventh-gen Civic and tucked inside the compact crossover SUV segment.

It will also become available outside of North America – in China or Europe, for example – only there it will be sold under a newly-established ZR-V nameplate, slotted between the global HR-V and the legendary CR-V, and it will also sport a full hybrid powertrain as standard equipment. I hope that all real-world mysteries were settled because we are going to add something imaginary next.

Kleber Silva, the Brazil-based virtual artist known as KDesign AG on social media, has decided that, in between a couple of Caddy pickup trucks (one based on the Lyriq EV and the other on the GMC Sierra plus Escalade-V), there is a need for even more pickup truck action. Only this time around, the possible targets of this wishful thinking Honda TR-V compact unibody pickup truck are crystal clear: Hyundai’s Santa Cruz, and above all, the hybrid Ford Maverick.

The base was snatched from outside the Honda camp – as the author explained it piggybacks on the Fiat Toro architecture – but that’s less important. Instead, what matters are the Honda ZR-V visual elements and the possible setup as a full hybrid unibody pickup truck! Well, if this were ever to become real, it would certainly give the equally sustainable Ford Maverick a cool run for its little truck money.


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Editor's note: Gallery includes official images of North American Honda HR-V.

About the author: Aurel Niculescu
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Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution.
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