The 800-HP Honda Beast Is A Glorious Display Of Racing Excess

There’s a moment when the Honda Beast — a CR-V outfitted with an IndyCar-spec engine — switches from electric to combustion power. For me, it happened just at pit exit of Putnam Park Road Course in rural Indiana: you’re cruising along in near silence, then with a guttural howl and a shudder, the hybrid engine kicks in. The sheer force of it will shove you back into the racing seat — and if you’re me, you’re probably letting out a laugh. The Honda Beast doesn’t need to exist, but I’m so damn glad it does.

2023 Honda CR-V: The New Look

(Full disclosure: Honda invited me out to the 2023 Indianapolis 500 and also gave me a chance to try out some of its latest and greatest pieces of tech, including the incredible Beast.)

Photo: Jalopnik / Elizabeth Blackstock

Earlier this year, Honda introduced the Beast, which is a CR-V outfitted with a 2024-spec IndyCar engine. The 2.2-liter V6 is both hybrid and twin turbocharged, and it flirts with around 800 horsepower. It’s not a machine for the faint of heart, and that’s why we were asked to don some fireproof racing overalls and a helmet before we were allowed to lock ourselves into the passenger seat.

We’ve detailed the Beast’s specs here before, so I’m not going to double down on Honda Performance Development’s wild ride, but suffice it to say that the Beast is very far from the family crossover it stemmed from.

Instead, I had a chance to nab two flying laps around Putnam Park as a passenger in the Beast — the best place to revel in the glorious excess that is the Honda Beast.

Photo: Jalopnik / Elizabeth Blackstock

I know some of my fellow journalists on the trip weren’t as impressed as I was by the Beast, but I think we were looking at it from a very different lens. This was a project that was kind of cobbled together in the off-hours of the HPD staff, a rolling “what if…?” that came to fruition. It’s outfitted with road car rubber and massive brakes from the Acura NSX GT-3 Evo22 racer. It’s a family runabout held stiff with motorsport-derived suspension. It’s designed for fun, not for technological refinement.

And I was kind of forced to get into that “fun” mindset: as I was belted into my bucket seat, I quickly realized that I would be too short to touch the floor of the car to brace myself. I was instantly transported back in time to my childhood, dangling my feet over the edge of the school bus seat as a kindergartener thrilled to find out where my new friends lived as we picked them up for class.

With no “oh shit” handle in sight and legs too short to reach the ground, the roll bar was the best thing to brace myself with.Photo: Honda

Putnam Park isn’t exactly the kind of track where a racer can really let loose, and so my driver just barely hit the triple digits as he floored it down the straights. There’s that rollercoaster stomach flip as your helmet melds into the headrest, the bone-shaking vibrations from a hybrid engine screaming through the gears. Racers like James Hinchcliffe and Max Verstappen have both put this machine through its paces during its immensely limited testing time, and both walked away with favorable impressions.

Is the Honda Beast the most refined motorsport-adjacent product out there? No. But it’s so damn fun that it serves to remind us that not all things in life need to be perfect. Sometimes, they just need to make you smile.