SPY PICS: New CR-V due next year?

Work is going ahead on what could be easily mistaken for a facelift of Honda's compact SUV, the CR-V.

A disguised pre-production car was cornered recently in America's Death Valley by the spy photographers at Carparazzi, who report, however, that the vehicle in question may be a little more than a simple facelift.

At first glance, the roofline of the disguised CR-V and the current production car's look the same, but the tailgate is clearly different and both the door skins and quarter panels have been revised. There seems to be more overhang at the front and the rear bumper cover kicks up more for what may be an improved departure angle. It's hard to see from the pics, but the photographers suspect that the roof is lower than the current car's and there may be some extra length spliced in after the B pillars.

The current car is the third-generation CR-V to reach the Australian market and there has been a model lifecycle of around four or five years from one generation to the next. Since the current CR-V debuted here in 2007, it's arguably overdue for replacement by an altogether new model. The advent of the Global Financial Crisis may have played a part in delaying development of this new generation CR-V, as it has done for many other cars in the pipeline.

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