Six appeal in MPV middle ground: It has a lot to do with our dominant religion these days: consumerism.
The modern Irish mecca is the shopping centre to which every family must religiously trek in the weeks after Christmas in search of elusive bargains or, more likely, "to get the kids out of the house for a few hours".
We crawl through gridlock to these glorified sheds located off our handful of motorways, fight for parking three miles from the entrance, and finally wander around aimlessly. This is the fruit of our hard labours and increased productivity.
Our chariot of choice for these "family moments" is, of course, the people carrier. We line the kids up, like soldiers in Saracens, in the back seats and head for the frontline.
People carriers are known in industry lingo as MPVs, which sounds like it should be heard over the crackle of gunfire, from real or plastic weapons. "Sarge! They're moving in on Woodies. Call up the MPVs."
Like it or not, MPVs offer a practicality in today's society that the traditional three-box saloon fails to deliver. Take the average family: with 2.5 children and two parents a regular saloon is full; your offspring have to be social recluses, making no friends until they're old enough to find their own transport.
So, should you sacrifice your sexy saloon for the sake of securing your children's social skills? Yes, apparently. People carriers are the largest growing segment of the market at present, with sales up over 40 per cent last year, even topping sales in the burgeoning SUV segment. They now represent over 8 per cent of the new car market and this share is growing every month.
Cynics might suggest that it's yet another sign of the Americanisation of European society. The Americans never bought into the European hatchback thing. Instead they went for big people carriers. So we built the shopping malls and joined the space race. So what if the MPVs have as much styling as a pair of tracksuit bottoms - like their baggy cotton equivalents they're roomy and can hide a thousand sins.
Honda has played its part in this market with its seven-seater Stream. It's also regarded as king of the roomy supermini class with its family-friendly Jazz.
But Honda has been absent from the biggest area of the people carrier class, the medium-sized models. This is dominated by the Renault Megane Scenic, Opel Zafira and the surprisingly popular Ford Focus C-Max (surprising because, though it's included in the MPV segment, it only has five seats).
The biggest sellers here are the smaller or more price conscious MPVs, featuring a high-roofed five-seater format or a third row that folds away to offer up a boot.
This is perhaps the indicator Honda was looking for. Despite an apparent desire to accommodate our kids' best friends, buyers of the likes of the Zafira and Scenic spend most of their time in the five-seat format with a useable boot.
But while the C-Max allows the two-child family to cart only one of the children's friends with them, Honda, aware of sibling rivalry, lets them bring one each. The FR-V lets two parents, two kids and two friends travel in comfort. Think of the tantrums this will avoid - the only problem is who sits in the front.
Being a three-abreast animal, the FR-V is clearly wider than the average car. Yet it's not unwieldy in car parks and tight spaces. We negotiated some of Dublin's tightest multi-storey car parks without difficulty.
It's actually smaller in both length and width than the C-Max - the Ford is 1,825mm wide compared to the FR-V at 1,810 mm. The Honda also tops it for height, then adds a middle seat in the front row for good measure.
Against its most similar competitor, the six-seater Fiat Multipla, the Honda benefits from Japanese fit and finish - and more sophisticated cabin styling.
It's slightly bigger than the Multipla and shares about the same boot space, at 439 litres to 430 litres in the Fiat. The Multipla, though, more than tops it when the seats are folded down - a maximum of 1,900 litres to the Honda's 1,049 litres.
It's all about that extra front seat. The Fiat is 60mm wider than the Honda overall and, while that doesn't seem much in relation to the overall size of the cars, it matters when it's your rump fighting for cushion space with the person in the middle front seat.
This seat would perfectly suit a small child - the independent sliding motion of each seat can keep them out of reach of the dash.
However, legal restrictions on the size of front-seat passengers mean that more than likely it's going to be at least an adolescent in the jump seat.
However, the Honda has more going for it than simply its extra chair. It's extremely flexible in terms of internal layout, with all seats apart from the driver's folding into the floor.
But the real benefit comes in its driving characteristics. The 1.7-litre petrol engine can push it along without complaint and it drives well in all road conditions.
If you have to surrender to mundane people-carrier motoring, the Honda at least offers you the chance to feel like a regular motorist, at least from behind the wheel.
Dials and controls are taken straight from the latest Accord, except the dash-mounted gearstick, located there so as to allow room for that all important third-seat. Even then it's surprisingly smooth and slightly sporting, despite its positioning.
The FR-V may never be as flexible on the road as the Accord, but it inherits some of the qualities of its very admirable smaller family model, the Jazz.
So, if you must worship at the alter of consumerism - and for most it's not a choice but a fact of family life - then the FR-V offers more flexibility than the average car while retaining something of the regular car feel. For some it will still be too similar to a big hatchback, but others don't have the luxury of choice.
