It was a Sunday, so there wasn’t much activity at Honda’s office in Bangkok. I went in search of the new Civic in their parking lot, but I needn’t have done; it immediately stood out among all the cars in the lot. It sat quietly in a corner, but there was a feline quality to it that struck me – like a muscular cat, purring and friendly at first, but ready to give you a swipe at the slightest provocation. It was obvious that Honda had decided to stir things up on the design front – which was appropriate, since the car before me was all-new from the ground up. Honda calls the new shape ‘monoform’, and it’s easy to see why; the way the car flows smoothly from front to back is almost liquid. The words ‘wind tunnel’ must have figured quite a lot in the conversations of Honda engineers, because the car had a striking aerodynamic profile. The wheel arches were nicely filled out by 205 section tyres on 16-inch alloys, but it’s unlikely that either will make it to India – 195/15 is what we’re looking at. The car in the pictures is the American version of the Civic (the one that’s coming here as well), but with larger, curvier headlamps (and a sexy kink just above them in the fender) as opposed to the flatter ones found on the US-spec model. The Civic may be a family saloon, but it’s more R-rated than PG-13. Remember, this is a car that even Honda has described as having a somewhat dull and middle-aged image (yes, it’s there in their international press material), so the sleek, sculpted vehicle that I was confronted with came as an unexpected surprise. On looks alone, this car appears set to be a winner.
Let me make a quick admission here – I’ve had a bone to pick with Honda for a while. Specifically, ever since they went and discontinued the old City, I’ve been a bit miffed with them. I thought Honda had sold out a bit with the new City, which lacked the raw edge and understated aggression of its ancestor, and I didn’t like it. Thankfully, I can’t say the same about this car.
Enough with the side act, then. What you really want to know is how the Civic feels to drive, so let’s jump right in. There’s an all-new 1800cc, 140 bhp i-VTEC engine under that arresting V-shaped bonnet, and even the VTEC system has been tweaked. What it does is to keep an intake valve on each cylinder open during compression, in order to reduce the amount of energy lost when the piston moves up again. Honda claim this will improve efficiency even further (and I don’t doubt them), but the downside of this appears to be a slight lack of oomph low down in the rev range.
The Civic isn’t the fastest off the line at the lights, and there’s a bit of a flat spot between 2000 and about 3500 rpm, which is where most of the overtaking action on Indian roads is likely to take place. To be honest, I’m doing a bit of hair-splitting here; there’s sufficient power available, but a little more in that rev range would have been useful, not to mention fun – because when you keep the loud pedal floored, this car is a lot of fun. There’s a great snarl from the engine as it winds itself up at 4000 rpm, and after 5000 revs life’s a picnic – a kick in the pants (a polite one, this being a Honda, but a kick all the same) and the Civic hunkers down and streaks off. All that wind-tunnel work pays off here, as the car simply slices through the air without discernible resistance. Straight-line ability is fantastic and the car remains unwaveringly planted even at higher triple-digit speeds.
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