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“I’d trade in my MDX for this,” said my friend Pete, a car guy to the bone.
That would be his Acura MDX, a $45,000 luxury SUV. Sweet ride. This would be the new 10th-generation 2016 Honda Civic, which starts at a measly $18,640. I didn’t bring Pete along for a full shakedown of the new compact sedan — I was just giving him a lift after he’d dropped off one of his other cars, an ’86 Porsche 911, at a mechanic — but it turned into one. As we chatted about random stuff, Pete started poking and prodding the machine, and our conversation kept coming back to the car.
“This construction feels really solid,” he noted. “I like the look of this dash.”
“Smooth, too,” I observed. “And the engine actually has balls.”
I accelerated briskly from a light to prove my point. The optional new 1.5-liter turbo four produces 174 horsepower and 162 lb-ft of torque. It feels good. Coupled with the car’s lower, wider stance, the whole package also feels actually… sporty. This, in spite of the presence of a typically very un-sporty continuously variable transmission. But Honda has this one tuned to deliver power without feeling like it’s straining through every moment, and it still provides the MPG’s that Civic buyers crave — in this case 35 mpg combined.
With the 2016 Civic, it looks that Honda has a winner — a bold new revival of a 40-year-old stalwart.
