Somehow Honda keeps on making good adverts. They don’t go for flashy productions with thumping soundtracks, explosions,  and drama. Just simple, clever ads that make you think. Their latest CR-V is another good ‘un.

It’s called ‘Illusions, An Impossible Made Possible’ and it features some very clever trickery to fool our eyes. As you can see, it’s amazing what you can do with a different camera angle and a tin of paint.

Making the ‘impossible’ seem possible is a fitting theme for their latest CR-V crossover. If Honda had said a few years ago that they could get 62mpg from a big family car that weighs 1,600kg journalists would have been checking their PR staff’s eyes for dilated pupils.

And yet the CR-V can do just that. The new “Earth Dreams” 1.6-litre turbodiesel is officially rated at 62.8mpg and 119g/km, qualifying it for free road tax and giving it a range of over 800 miles. Even more impressive is the 300Nm of torque that it boasts, beating most rivals who use 2.0 and 2.2-litre engines. Now that’s progress.

Mind you, if you think the emissions and economy of the new CR-V are good, how about the upcoming NSX replacement? A 400bhp V6 mated to a hybrid powertrain that generates enough electricity to … well, see for yourself in the following video, another great ad for Honda’s technology.

That’s producing just about enough hot water to keep my coffee levels topped up for a day.

Of course, no mention of Honda adverts would be complete without ‘The Cog’. It still ranks as one of the cleverest adverts I’ve ever seen and, even though the Accord it advertises has long since been replaced, the advert itself

And one of my all time favourite adverts, ‘The Impossible Dream’. It’s getting on a bit now but shows the amazing breadth of talent in Honda’s engineering divisions, from scooters to supercars, lawnmowers to powerboats, Formula 1 racers to planes. Altogether now … “to dream the impossible dream”.