I went to the local dealer's Civic launch event this evening.
They had chosen a top of the range model in black. Being all black it toned down the black plastic features in the fussy bumpers which, when the car is in a contrasting colour, jump out at you. In black it looked pretty good and far better than it appears in pictures.
I've never had a problem with interior space in the outgoing model but, although its supposed to be bigger, the new one felt no more spacious. In fact the front headroom felt tighter, maybe due to the thick leather seats and sunroof. I had expected to feel much lower in the new car as most reviews mention this but, at least in the showroom, it felt no lower. It certainly wasn't worth moving the fuel tank to allow the front seats to be lowered at the expense of the magic seats.
Otherwise the cabin was a nice place to be and its a step or two up in apparent quality from the outgoing model.
The array of safety features on all but the base model is impressive with adaptive cruise, blind spot monitoring, collision avoidance and so on. A lot to go wrong as the car ages. The electric hand brake seems to offer manual and automatic operation options. Again probably OK for the first buyer but I'd prefer the old mechanical system.
Only a simple brochure was available so I couldnt check out stuff like wheel and tyre options but I suspect the 16" has been dropped and they are all 17/18". It seems the only way of getting even just a spacesaver with the more powerful engine is to buy the top model as lower models have a central exhaust that takes up the spare well.
Finally I decided to download the brochure when I got home but Honda UK's link for the 2017 Civic actually takes you to the outgoing model. Unbelievable, don't they want to sell any?
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