Honda Civic hatch returns at last
Www.nelsonmail.co.nz The Civic hatchback returns after a six-year absence in the form of an all-new one that promises to change the five-door C-segment here overnight, writes Dave Moore.
Honda’s new fivedoor Civic is the evolution of a car we never got in New Zealand. When launched in 2006, it really hit the funny bone in Europe, the market it was designed and built for, with wedgy styling, sexy triangular exhaust pipes, concentrically arranged dash areas, ‘‘magic’’ rear seats a la the Jazz super mini and a hero Type-R model that used a naturally aspirated motor to outdrive most of its turbocharged competitors.
Meantime, poor old New Zealand had at the time the above car came out, to let its access to Civic five-doors lapse as production moved from Japan to Britain. Our little market had to make do with what we could get from Asia, and Asia being a mainly four-door market, Honda’s suppliers could only supply sedans.
Australian hatch fans managed to pressure their Honda people to fetch limited numbers of the hatch from Swindon, in Britain, but we had no luck on this side of the ditch. Some private customers did bring their own posh Pommie Honda hatches in however, enjoying a positive exchange rate and the knowledge that JD Power research reckoned that the British Hondas were unlikely to go wrong.
Waiting until the spectacular wedgy Civic underwent its redesign late last year, Honda New Zealand did its sums and came up with an import deal that not only allowed them a profit, but enabled them to furnish a well-equipped Civic hatch to the New Zealand market for a surprisingly slick sticker of $32,990.
That’s for the entry point 1.8 S six-speed manual, with a turbinesmooth 1.8-litre engine putting out 104kW and an equipment level that leaves little out and includes very smart 16-inch alloys. This is no stripped-back starter model.
It still fronts with six airbags, a full alphabet soup of electronic driver aids, a five-star Euro NCAP crash safety rating and a fully revamped evolution of the previous car’s market-stopping wedge styling.
A five-speed automatic version of the 1.8 S adds two grand, while if you want heated seats, slightly simpler connectivity, and leather trim, along with lower-profile 17-inch rims and matching tyres, you’ll need $38,900 for the 1.8L, an automatic-only offering.
The redesign, which makes the latest hatch concurrent with the ninth-generation sedan that arrived here at the beginning of the year, effectively rounds-off its sharply-edged predecessor in order to improve aerodynamics and as a result noise, vibration and harshness levels and fuel consumption.
On the outside, the sharply edged side glasses are still there, but curvy wheel arches and slightly longer front and rear overhangs mean you’ll never mistake the new car for the old. Not that most New Zealanders would know what the old car looks like anyway.
At the rear, LED lighting does double duty as a wind harnessing spoiler, splitting the tailgate glass where the lower plane tries to make up for the high rear waistline, which can give you a worry or two for rearward visibility.
The most effective part of the aerodynamic improvement is invisible to casual observers, though if you can stick your head under the car, you’ll notice an almost perfectly flat under panel which has been designed to allow airflow under the car with less interruption, thus reducing wind resistance and lift. The panel covers most of the exhaust system and some of the suspension.
Where the Civic hatch is really going to score is in its use of similar packaging technology to that in the amazingly well-sorted Jazz, which is still without peer for load and passenger space in its segment after 10 years.
Like the Jazz, the Civic five-door uses a forward-mounted fuel tank, thus enabling the use of a ‘‘Magic Rear Seat’’ which, when the squabs are folded up and locked, allows tall, awkward loads to go into the centre of the car, without impinging on the boot. The car’s neat torsion beam rear suspension set up keeps the floor flat to facilitate the stowage room and there’s great space for full-sized adults in the rear. The boot is massive, with 487 litres of load capacity.
The rising rearward waistline means the car’s visibility at the rear quarters is compromised a little, but looking straight back, the spilt window gives you a reasonable view of what you are reversing into.
At the front too, the pillars are a little thick, but you get used to them, and no-one, not even with a frame like mine – 1.88m/100kg – can complain about the front driver’s or passenger’s positions. Good driver’s seat and wheel adjustment means most shapes and sizes are well catered to, and for the sake of a few moments’ study, the double-level dash and various digital readouts are easy to master, while the quality stereo is identical to that furnished in the sedan, albeit with a much more pleasant surface finish.
The same goes for the basic dash and console furniture – the textures, softness to the touch and general finish are vastly better than the sedan’s. Betraying its European sourcing, the Civic hatch has left-side indicators, which is about the only thing you’ll need to get used to, because to drive, the car is simplicity itself.
The manual car has a typically crisp shift action and well-sorted throttle and clutch actions, and it becomes second nature to accurately match engine speed with incoming lower ratios when downshifting. Moving one’s foot from throttle to brake pedal is easy, and there’s room to even indulge in some toe-heel braking if you’ve a mind to.
Geared for European motorways, the manual Civic is a long-legged prospect and it’s just as well the six-speed gearbox is slick, for it needs to be stirred to keep the car on the boil as it suffers from a degree of low revolution lethargy. But cog-swapping in this car is good fun anyway and a nice benefit of that moon shot gearing is that at 100kmh the engine is barely drawing breath.
Give it a good thrashing and the car will run to 100kmh in just under nine seconds.
The five-speed automatic is a tad slower – about a half second or so – but I prefer the car. The slurringly smooth automatic better suits the car’s remarkable refinement levels, and seems to keep the engine in its sweet spot without any evidence of ‘‘hunting’’ or the like.
Civics have never been hard on gas and the 1.8 hatch offers EU ratings of posts 6.5L/100km and 146g/km which is above average in the segment, and a nice surprise considering its crisp overall performance.
On the road, the Civic offers up a nice blend of ride quality and tidy handling and you’ll get a good balance between fun and comfort. Thanks to new mixed-compound semi-fluid rear suspension bushes, it doesn’t cause flinches over bumps. Though some might criticise electric power steering systems, Honda has been using them for a decade and a half, and the Civic’s set up is one of the best. It’s accurate, offers good resistance when cornering hard and though it’s not the most talkative of set-ups, I can think of several hydraulic steering systems that don’t provide as much tactility.
I like the car’s confident way on turn-in, when it feels well-planted and taut. The car stays flat and solid mid-bend, offers good grip with either tyre size on offer, and understeers predictably, but quite late in the process of cornering.
On the open road, the Civic yawns quietly along at 100kmh, and there’s not much in the way of wind noise. While you can detect the difference between surface types, the Honda’s road noise is well suppressed too, thanks to those new bushings, I’d guess.
I was so pleased when Honda decided to take advantage of exchange rates and give the Swindon factory a ring. While the Civic sedan has always been a decent car, it has never exactly set the world on fire. The Euro Civic hatch adds a sense of occasion to the segment that starts with its looks, doesn’t stop as you go through and use its cabin and carries on when you drive the car or travel in it.
I have a few quibbles. The base car does not offer cruise control and looks a little undershod on 16-inch alloy rims, but for under $33k this is churlish.
Designed to compete in Europe against such luminaries in the C-segment hatch business as the Golf and Focus, the Civic five-door is the only Japanese offering to meet them head-on, with the possible exception of the Mazda3.
Factor in the car’s price, performance and equipment equation and it’s a no-brainer.