Cumulative production of Honda’s Civic series has reached 15 million, ranking the line among the most prolific car models of all time.
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Production of the first Civic – a 1200cc two-box front-wheel drive model – started in July 1972 at the Suzuka plant in Japan. With its superior driving performance, fuel economy, safety and environmental performance, together with its spacious interior, the Civic was a car of universal appeal. Its appearance marked a coming of age for Honda as a world class car manufacturer.
With three and four-door models and a 1500cc engine joining the line-up, the first generation Civic sold almost two million units before giving way to the second series in 1979. This version saw the introduction of saloon and estate models for the first time, the former built and sold in Britain during the early ’80s badged as the Triumph Acclaim.
The 1983 third generation Civic was another hit – and saw much diversification in the form of the closely-related Civic Shuttle minivan and sporty CRX models. The four-door model was also the basis for the first Rover 200 series in the UK.
Production of the Civic at Honda’s UK plant in Swindon began in late 1994 with a five-door derivative unique to Europe and closely related to Rover’s jointly developed 400-series. The British-built model quickly established itself as the most popular Civic model ever sold in Britain and Europe – with around 400,000 built between 1994 and 2001. This figure includes the Civic Aero deck (estate) model introduced during 1998.
Introduced in 2001, the current seventh generation Civic is built in Japan (four and five-door), America (two and four-door) and the UK (three and five-door). The UK plant builds all of three and five-door models for Europe, and exports the three-door to America (as the Civic Si) and Japan (as the Type-R).
The Civic has continued to introduce new technologies into the market place, with each new generation. Among the more important were the CVCC engine, the low emission Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion engine which enabled the first generation Civic to satisfy the requirements of the Muskie Act in the US, the world’s most stringent exhaust emissions standards at the time.
Honda introduced the VTEC engine (Variable valve Timing and lift, Electronic Control) with the fourth generation Civic and CRX. This engine, for the first time, allowed both valve timing and lift to be altered to extend the rev range and power of the engine. The result was an unprecedented 150 horsepower from an engine of just 1.6 litres.
The fifth generation Civic was among the first cars in its class to introduce anti-lock braking to some models in the line up. Today, almost all Civics feature ABS brakes (also with EBD and “brake assist”) as standard equipment.
Continuously Variable Transmission by steel belt running between two expandable pulleys brought a more efficient type of automatic transmission to the Civic range for the sixth generation model.
The natural-gas powered Civic GX sold as part of the sixth generation Civic (in Japan and the US) showed that such a fuel could be both practical and very clean. When launched, the Civic GX was the cleanest vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine ever built.
The Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) petrol/electric hybrid system introduced in the current seventh generation Civic is Honda’s latest clean air technology that allows exceptional efficiency and exhaust gas cleanliness from a small capacity petrol engine.
