Japanese Tuner Turns a Bland Honda Crossover Into a Jeep XJ Lookalike

Rumors claim that Jeep will bring back the Cherokee nameplate in the not-too-distant future. While they haven’t materialized yet, a Japanese tuner named Damd is bringing back some of the Cherokee’s defining styling cues via a body kit developed for a small Honda crossover sold in a handful of overseas markets.

Damd started with the Japanese-market WR-V, which is unrelated to the WR-V available in countries like Brunei and Thailand. The front-wheel-drive subcompact stretches about 169.8 inches long, 70.5 inches wide, and 65 inches tall, so it’s roughly 10 inches shorter than the HR-V available in our market. Visually, it’s essentially what you’d call a run-of-the-mill crossover, without the slightest off-road pretensions.

Infusing it with XJ genes gives it a more distinctive character. The only photo published by the tuner shows a new-look front end with square headlights, rectangular turn signals, and an upright grille with six slots — we’re guessing adding a seventh slot would have summoned a dark cloud of disapproval from Jeep’s legal department. The front bumper has been redesigned, the sides feature woodgrain-style decals, and black-finished wheels wrapped by meaty all-terrain tires add a finishing touch to the transformation. That said, the nose combined with the angled C-pillar, which is retained from the WR-V, does lend a very Jeep Compass-like vibe.

The result is a look that you’ll either love, hate, or find tacky. Damd might be onto something, however. Rugged styling sells, especially if it ends up on something not developed for anything more hardcore than a dirt road. Do you remember the Mitsuoka Buddy? It was a Toyota RAV4 with a body kit that made it look like a Chevrolet K5 Blazer. It sold out despite a base price of approximately $45,000.

Closer to American roads, the new Honda Pilot looks markedly more rugged than the outgoing model. Outdoorsy-looking soft-roaders like the Ford Bronco Sport, which is mirroring the full-size Bronco with an optional Sasquatch Package for 2025, are doing pretty well, too. So, while pricing for the WR-V Reverb hasn’t been announced, and nothing suggests that it was envisioned as a high-volume model, we don’t doubt that it will sell relatively well. Don’t expect to see one in the United States anytime soon, though.

Damd will present the WR-V Reverb along with several other wild-looking builds at the 2025 Tokyo Auto Salon, which is like Japan’s equivalent to SEMA. The event opens its doors to the public on January 11.