Taking the new Honda Civic for a test drive

The Honda Civic has long been one of the most popular cars worldwide, but what's new in its latest model?
Published September 28, 2017

The Honda Civic, which has been in production since 1973, recently became the most popular of all products rolled out by Honda. Hundreds of thousands of units have already been sold in many countries around the world.

This year, Honda’s tenth-generation Civic was rolled out for buyers in different countries of the world.

But what sets the tenth generation apart when it's stacked up against sedans from other manufacturers? More importantly, why should one buy the new Civic and not just any other sedan?

Ronny Levstek recently took the new Civic model on a test drive in Germany.

Taking the new Honda Civic for a spin.

As is evident, the tenth generation Civic incorporates many new features.

Exterior

At a glance, the new Civic is wider and longer than its predecessors.

Driving the Civic is also a more comfortable experience, largely because navigating bumpy and dilapidated roads has been made much more easy thanks to a steering system that is similar to hybrid sports cars.

Honda has also incorporated other technologies and characteristics of hatchbacks into the new model. Thus, the car looks more like a hatchback than a sedan. This is mostly because of the unique design of its trunk.

Photo courtesy Honda
Photo courtesy Honda

Honda calls this new design a 'notchback sedan'. The back or trunk of such cars extends horizontally from right beneath the rear window of the car, so as to make a distinct angle with it.

But a drawback of the design has emerged in the form of a smaller trunk lid. However, if the back seats are folded, the trunk’s storage space can be increased by a significant margin.

At the front, the car has a chrome bar along with the trademark black air intake panel, whereas the headlights are also considerably different from previous models.

Though the car is smaller when compared to Honda's Accord line of sedans, it is more spacious than previous models, thereby eliminating the smaller cabin space problem of earlier Civics.

Interior

Photo courtesy Honda
Photo courtesy Honda

The interior of the car resembles most hatchbacks, but the seats are more sporty in their build. The car is also equipped with the Honda Sensing Suite, which comes with a semi-automatic driving system and an adaptive cruise control feature, which helps the car brake or throttle up automatically.

Power

The car is powered by a 134KW, turbocharged, 1.5-litre, four-cylinder gasoline engine. The manual, six-gear transmission takes the car from rest to 100 kilometers in 8.2 seconds. However, if the optional CVT automatic feature is used, the car takes some more time in attaining speed.


This story was produced in association with Deutsche-Welle (DW).


Translated from original in Urdu by Bilal Karim Mughal.