Honda might be struggling with overall sales across Europe but there’s no doubting the excellence of many of its cars. The latest Civic Tourer 1.8 i-VTEC proves that point.
Things move fast in Europe’s C segment. The Peugeot 308 SW briefly had the largest boot in the class but that achievement has been snatched away by the Honda Civic Tourer. The boot capacity is astonishing: 624 litres. Astonishing given the size of the cars, which measures 4,535mm end to end; a typical length for this class.
Go deeper with GlobalData
The Tourer was designed specifically for European markets. It’s built alongside the five-door hatchback at the Swindon plant west of London, and the 1.6-litre diesel (i-DTEC) is also made in England. My test car came with the other available engine, a 142PS 1.8-litre i-VTEC petrol. The 2.2-litre diesel isn’t available, as Honda is now phasing that engine out of its model ranges.
UK market Civic estates come with the choice S & S-T, SE Plus & SE Plus-T, SR and EX Plus model grades. My car was an SR manual but there’s an auto gearbox for all petrol-engined variants. It’s a shame, though, that diesel power is manual-only. Prices start at a competitive GBP20,270, rising to GBP27,690 with the as-tested model costing GBP24,355. CO2 is 149g/km or 155 for the auto and the Combined average is 44.1 mpg. The diesel’s Combined number is an impressive 74.3mpg and CO2 is 99g/km.
Honda Motor Europe’s engineers changed not only a lot of the car’s styling for the transformation of the hatchback into the Tourer but also the suspension. This includes an Adaptive Damper System which is standard for SE Plus and above model grades. The suspension itself is very cleverly packaged, to such an extent that there is even room for a hidden bay in the boot floor. The ride is very good, either with just the driver on board or else with the car fully loaded, though the softest of the adjustable damper settings does mean more body roll than is ideal.
One of the most impressive things about this car is its so-called ‘Magic Seats’. Honda is a master at designing simple seat folding arrangements and the Civic Tourer has one of the company’s best systems yet. The bases, backrests and head restraints flip forward in one easy movement – who needs electric operation when it’s this simple? The seats themselves are also very light, so even if you have hands full with shopping bags, it’s quick and straightforward to either tip or raise either section of the back seats.
How well do you really know your competitors?
Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.
Thank you!
Your download email will arrive shortly
Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample
We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form
By GlobalDataSomething else that’s been designed by highly intelligent people is the Stop-start system. Unlike in many other cars, this works even if you lift your foot off the clutch while already at a standstill and pull the handbrake on, i.e. it doesn’t restart until you press the clutch pedal.
There was one thing which did annoy me, though, and that was the infotainment system. For some reason, and no matter how many times I tried to sort it out, it would always fail to start playing music from my iPhone 5, even though it had been working the last time I drove the car. Some issue with the Bluetooth, most likely. In the best vehicles, the music kicks back in the moment you restart the engine, or in JLR vehicles, it even fades in, which is a nice touch. In the Civic, the track would suddenly return anything between 30 seconds and 5 minutes after you’d started the car. Until then, silence.
Europe’s current Civic range debuted at the 2011 Frankfurt IAA but the model series had been seen earlier that year in North America. There, the car is a four-door sedan with the choice of petrol or petrol-electric hybrid powertrains or else a two-door coupe. The HUM plant (Honda of the UK Manufacturing) at Swindon is where all hatchbacks and Tourers are made but in some European markets, the sedan is also offered but it’s an import.
At September 2012’s Paris motor show, Honda’s European president, Manabu Nishimae, announced the addition of a Civic wagon. A concept version was then revealed at the Geneva motor show six months later, with the production model, the Civic Tourer, following at the Frankfurt show in September 2013. Production commenced at HUM in December 2013 with the first cars entering European showrooms in early 2014 alongside a slightly restyled five-door hatchback, which had debuted at Frankfurt alongside the estate.
A second facelift for the Swindon-built hatchback and the first facelift for the Tourer have just premiered at the Paris motor show this week but we won’t see them on sale for a short while yet. The reason for the second update is to lift disappointing sales. I had a look inside these cars at Paris on 2 October and the interior is hardly changed. The main update is to the front end, and the forthcoming Type R derivative was another debut at the show, featuring an equivalent styling revision. This 280PS rocket is due in European showrooms during the first half of 2015.
Next year is going to be a busy one for HME, with two other models also premiering in Paris. The HR-V, a B segment crossover, will be coming here in the summer and in 1.6-litre diesel form, it was a world premiere at the show. The new Jazz, another model which has been sold in Japan for a while now, debuted as the ‘Jazz Prototype’ but there was no mention of a diesel for this car, which is odd, to say the least. Finally, the facelift that American Honda announced a week back for its 2015 model year CR-V also turned up at the Paris Mondial, along with the surprise arrival of an optional nine-speed auto automatic gearbox. All of this is great for HME’s dealers as they have been crying out for lots of fresh new products.
Honda deserves as much success as it can get with the Civic and especially the Tourer as it’s such a well engineered model series. There’s a lot of grey plastic and the dashboard and instrumentation are not like anything else in the class, with swoopy lines, brightly coloured digital gauges and a cosy cockpit feel. I like it but can see that it isn’t to everyone’s taste. If you love the Golf’s sensible shoes interior, you’ll find this one a bit of a contrast. The exterior styling is also distinctive and you always know when a Civic is coming up behind you by what must be the brightest DRL on any car.
HME has done well to insist that Japan listens to its requests for localised products – you can imagine that there must have been some heated discussions to get essentials such as not only a unique wagon body style but also a diesel with competitive CO2 emissions. The forthcoming styling refresh also shows that HQ is letting its European division move faster to keep cars looking up to date – as the now aged (and diesel-less) Jazz proves, if you don’t do that, sales soon fall.
It does seem that Honda has found its way again in Europe, with the quality and usefulness of the Civic Tourer underlining that. The addition of the new Jazz, new HR-V and the image boosting Civic Type R hatchback should mean vastly improved brand sales in 2015 too.
