It is possible to cause a dramatic, whooshing, sucking in of air through someone’s teeth to rival the supersonic power of an Airbus wind tunnel.
You have a choice in how you do this. You can ask a plumber how much it’s going to cost to fix the shambles of your DIY dishwasher installation. Or you can just show a random person the price of the new Honda Civic.
I shall now do the second of those. I would say “take a deep breath”, but you’re about to do just that. It’s €48,995.
Well, now that the sound of rushing air has diminished, it’s probably worth asking quite how we got to a point where a straightforward, albeit well-equipped, family car can cost the guts of €50,000.
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It’s honestly not too Abe Simpson-esque to point out that it really wasn’t that long ago that €49,000 was the price of a well-specced BMW 5 Series.
True, that same 5 Series now has a starting price that’s about €25,000 more than that of the Civic, a case of automotive price inflation similar to that of the Civic but about which few will complain. Is that just because we expect a BMW to be overpriced, but Honda doesn’t catch the same breaks?
Whatever the whataboutery of relative pricing, there’s no debate that the Civic is seriously, searingly expensive. Worth it?
No, of course not. No family hatchback could possibly be worth that kind of cash, but – and it’s a big but – the Civic comes closer to justifying its inflated price tag than you might imagine.
There are some mitigating factors. If you want to buy a VW Golf hybrid, you’ll have to spend similar money on one.
Now, it’s true that the Golf e-Hybrid is a plug-in hybrid with 120km of electric range, which puts one over the Civic’s more prosaic non-plug-in hybrid set-up, but you also get a much smaller boot and less space in the back seat.
Honda also has notions about being a premium brand, seeing itself – even if we don’t quite – as a competitor for the likes of Audi and BMW. In many ways, you could say that’s fair enough.
After all, back in the 1990s, Honda took on – and in the eyes of many critics, beat – Ferrari at the mid-engined supercar game with the original NSX, when BMW and Audi were merely making fast four-door saloons.
The Japanese company also makes its own business jet, its own robots, and now even makes a rocket launcher for lobbing satellites into space. Add that to the company’s recent dominance of Formula One (all of Max Verstappen’s world titles have been Honda-powered), and it is a little puzzling as to quite why Honda is less well-regarded than the Germans.
Certainly, as soon as you sit inside the Civic – ignoring, for a moment, its slightly too-plain exterior – you get an instant impression of rock-solid quality.
The style isn’t bad either, with a mesh effect that makes it look as if the air vents run the full width of the dashboard, while the digital instruments are crisp and clear and easy to read (not always the case with rival cars).
Better yet, Honda still insists on using proper buttons for major functions, from the air conditioning to dimming the dashboard lights, and for that alone, I think we should be sending little thank-you notes to Minato-ku, in Tokyo.
Certainly, it’s good that you don’t have to use the nine-inch touchscreen much, as it has a hopelessly confusing menu system.
There’s also tremendous comfort (the only other front seats I’ve sat on this year which have been as good have been the squashy armchairs of the Toyota Land Cruiser) and oodles of space.
The Civic might lack the cool flip-up “magic seats” of the smaller Jazz, but it compensates with plenty of legroom in the back and a usefully roomy 409-litre boot.
The little sideways-retracting luggage cover is a neat solution for those who need to regularly fold down the back seats, or who need to carry pets in the boot, but it does look and feel pretty flimsy. Thankfully, it’s the only part of the Civic which does.
Up front, drive is sent to the front wheels by a 2.0-litre hybrid petrol engine, which develops a combined 183hp. Which doesn’t sound all that spectacular, but nothing of the Civic’s on-paper stats can quite convey just how good this supposedly humble car is to drive.
Grip the (fully circular – none of that flat-edged silliness here, thank you) steering wheel and as soon as you have fired up the engine, pushed the slightly odd button-based gear shifter into D, and rolled forward a handful of metres, you will instantly love the Civic.
Well, you will if you’re an enthusiastic driver. Right away, you can tell that the Civic’s steering has been crafted with care and attention to weight, response and feedback. This might be the humble family-friendly version of the Civic, but the bones and DNA of the rip-roaring 320hp Civic Type-R are down in there somewhere, and the kinship is clear.
The Civic isn’t the fastest car around – 7.8 seconds 0-100km/h – but the torque-fill effect of the 315Nm provided by the electric motor means that it feels far more muscular when you need a burst of midrange power for overtaking or for lane-merging.
Better still, this is one of the precious few hybrid-engined cars where the engine doesn’t sound laboured or breathless as you press down harder on the accelerator. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t get the engine’s noise to rise above a pleasantly throaty murmur, like listening to someone watch a Lauren Bacall film in an adjacent room.
The Civic’s chassis is also well deported, with a comfortable ride quality and a sense of unruffled stability.
It’s a bit of an un-attention-seeking driver’s machine, but still one that easily returns fuel economy of five litres per 100km. It would probably have done better had I not been constantly taking the long way home.
Of course, all of this Civic enthusiasm still runs up against the brick wall of that price tag, but for that I think I have a solution. Most people buying a new car will be planning to trade it in after three years, thus recommencing the depreciation cycle.
So why not just keep the Civic for longer? Run it for six years and avoid that second burst of depreciation (which is always at its worst in the early years of a car’s life).
Okay, so this is man-maths at its worst, but if it would put this Civic permanently on my driveway, I think I’d be a happy man.
Lowdown: Honda Civic 2.0 i-MMD Advance
Power: Two-litre four-cylinder petrol engine with 135kW e-motor and lithium-ion battery producing 184hp and 315Nm of torque and powering the front wheels via a CVT automatic transmission.
CO2 emissions (annual motor tax): 114g/km (€190).
Fuel consumption: 5.0l/100km (WLTP).
0-100km/h: 7.8 secs.
Price: €48,995 as tested (Civic starts from €48,995)
Our rating: 3/5.
Verdict: Crazy expensive, but we still love it.
