Just so you know up front, I am a Honda man, a Honda man I am. So I am biased. Nevertheless, with the Honda CR-V, I promise to try to be objective. Honest.

    A comfortable run-about vehicle, the CR-V is a sensible 4-wheel drive sport utility, without the heavy clunkiness and truck-like feel of the larger sport utilities in the marketplace. If you’re looking for gobs of wood and leather on the inside, and fancy paint schemes with pinstripes and people’s names on the outside, forget it. This one's not for you. The CR-V comes one way, with only one option - antilock brakes and alloy wheels for an additional $1,000 over the base price of $19,400. Dealer cost is $17,600.

    Standard are automatic transmission, 4-wheel drive, air, power door locks and windows, cruise control, adjustable steering column, Micron Air filtration system for allergy sufferers, rear power outlet and a picnic table. A picnic table? I’m not kidding. The folded table is the cover for a waterproof storage bin underneath the cargo floor. I'd swap it for the unavailable sunroof.

    The 4-wheel drive used on the CR-V is a fully automatic, "when needed" system that acts as a normal 2-wheel drive until one or both of the front drive wheels starts to skid or slip. When that occurs, the drive is directed to the rear wheels and becomes a 4-wheel drive system. The driver does not have to do a thing. While this does not work quite as effectively as a "full time" system, it still helps a lot in snow, ice or on other slippery surfaces, not for sand or mud. It’s OK for unimproved roads. No fuel consumption penalty.

    One of the key features of a 4-wheel-drive vehicle is ground clearance, and the CR-V has, at 8.1 inches, plenty of it; more than the Ford Explorer or the Jeep Grand Cherokee.

    The CR-V is powered by a new, 128-horsepower, all-aluminum, double-overhead camshaft, 16-valve, 2-liter, 4-cylinder engine. As usual with Honda, this is a jewel of a motor - quiet, smooth and economical. The motor is connected to a smooth shifting 4-speed automatic transmission. And therein lies this vehicle's Achilles heel.

    While the operation of the automatic is fine, the column-mounted gear selector is jerky and balky to use, and particularly difficult if you feel like manually shifting. For you automatic transmission aficionados, this should be no problem; just let the transmission work for you. For five-speeders like myself who like to manipulate automatic transmissions on hills or in passing situations, however, it’s a problem.

    The car is larger on the inside than it is on the outside, if you know what I mean. The front and back leg room is excellent. This is a genuine 5-seater. The rear seats fold down to form a cavernous flat-floored cargo area with access through a rear flip-up window and a swing-out half door on which is mounted, in true sport utility fashion, the spare wheel and tire.

    Driving the CR-V feels like driving a larger Civic, which is not surprising considering that the design is based on the Civic platform, suspension, steering etc. It is very sweet on the road, easy to drive, with that hard-to-define Honda feel. It handles well, has excellent brakes and accelerates decently. I suspect a fully loaded CR-V would be a little anemic on hills, but not enough to dampen my enthusiasm for the way it drives. EPA fuel consumption estimates are 23/city and 26/highway. According to magazine road testers' experience, expect about 19 to 22 mpg overall.

    The competition? The smaller Toyota RAV4, Kia Sportage, (see the October 1996 issue of this magazine), the Subaru Legacy wagon (see April 1997 issue) and, available this summer, the Subaru Forester SUV.

    I don’t know how to unbias this report. The CR-V is just another great product from Honda.

    Motoring since 1952, Austin Lynas has owned 54 cars and at one time raced mini-sedans in England. An aerospace engineer, he was instrumental in developing the anti-skid systems used in British military aircraft that preceded today’s ABS systems.