Which Honda SUV was introduced in Japan in October 1995?

The Honda SUV introduced in Japan in October 1995 was the Honda CR-V. It was Honda’s first in-house-designed sport utility vehicle and helped define the modern compact crossover by combining SUV styling and four-wheel-drive availability with car-like construction.

The first-generation CR-V, designated RD1, was based on Honda’s compact-car engineering and used a unibody chassis rather than a separate truck-style frame. Its initial Japanese version used a 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine and was offered with front-wheel drive or four-wheel drive, depending on specification.

When it debuted in Japan, the CR-V exceeded the government’s 1,700-millimetre compact-car width limit. That meant it incurred a higher annual road-tax obligation, an important detail in its domestic-market history. The model later expanded internationally, reaching North America for the 1997 model year.

The Passport was a separate Honda-badged SUV based on an Isuzu product, while the Pilot arrived later as a larger model. The HR-V is also a crossover, but it belongs to a smaller class and was introduced after the CR-V.