2012 Honda Civic: First detail, photo and video

2012 Honda Civic - suitably disguised

If you think about Honda cars the first car that probably springs to mind is the Honda Civic because the Civic seems to have been around for ever. In fact, the 2012 Honda Civic will be the ninth generation of the Civic over nearly 40 years.

The original Civic arrived in 1972 with all its Japanese build quality and reliability intact from the start, and it was something of a revelation for a motoring public that were still buying new Austin 1300s and the later model Humber Sceptres.

The 2012 Honda Civic will be properly unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September, but Honda has divvied up a few photos today plus a talking heads and panning shots video to tell us what a great car the 2012 Civic will be.

Honda are aiming at taking sales from the Ford Focus and they probably have a chance; the new Focus is not as far ahead of the pack as previous models were. That said, Honda say they have improved the Civic’s ride and handling, but they’ve still stuck with torsion bean suspension instead of the more advanced multi-link setup.

But a Torsion Beam suspension setup (which in the 2012 Civic will also get fluid-filled compliance bushes) is more compact than a multi-linkl setup and so the Civic should score on cabin and luggage space.

But Honda are adamant that the new Civic will offer a better ride – particularly over bumps, which matters a lot on UK roads – and be more precise and stable, particularly at higher speeds. Which sounds promising, but even if it’s not as good as a multi-link suspension,  the trade-off with more space is probably important to its target demographic.

We think Honda is a bit defensive about using Torsion Beam, so they’ve sent us a video too so they can tell us just why it’s the right decision.

So it’s only fair you have to watch it too.

By Cars UK