Honda takes the long way home Civic gains 5in and a new turbo engine

APPARENTLY this new Civic has been in the making for seven years. Honda is not a company that hurries jobs.

Its achingly gorgeous HondaJet private plane took 20 years to go from drawing board to the skies – and the NSX supercar had at least a 10-year gestation.

So the new Civic is a rush job by Honda’s standards. It really is all new too – not just new bumpers and different lamps. The platform is a complete change from what went before.

For starters, it’s 136mm longer than the previous Civic, 20mm wider and 16mm lower. The extra 5ins in length is a massive amount and turns what is meant to be a compact hatchback into a vehicle that looks more like a saloon car.

In the old Civic the fuel tank lived under the front seats, but in the new car it has been moved to the more conventional location of under the rear seats. This has had two effects – you sit lower in the car and the folding rear seat bases have had to go.

Another big change is the styling, which has gone from the wackiness of the last-generation car to something a bit more mainstream. Probably a good move since, apart from the NSX and Civic Type R, Hondas tend to be owned by the more mature driver.

So to our test car. It’s a 1.0 VTEC Turbo EX to give it its full name, which unusually for a test car