Price £22,460
MPG 78.5
Top speed 129mph
Noir buffs, smudgy-eyed goths, TV executives, the stylishly insecure… Rejoice, this is the car for you. The Honda Civic Black Edition is black – all over. From the specially mixed paint (Crystal Black Pearlescent) to its gunpowder alloys and piano-black bodywork, everything is a starless Stygian shade – even the fuel cap and badge. In fact, you feel odd if you don’t wear black when you drive it.
But why has Honda thrown away the colour chart? Is it just to make life easy for those with a chronic inability to choose the exact hue they want? Yes, you with the 15 dabs of near-identical off-white on the wall! In this world of limitless choice – from breakfast cereal, to coffee to which thoracic surgeon you want cutting you open – the removal of a consumer’s right to make up their own mind is brilliantly, refreshingly, one-sided. And the more I think about it the more liberating I find it: “Black? Yes, I’ll have it in black.” Or maybe Honda is channelling the great Henry Ford, who famously offered his world-beating Model T in any colour you wanted – so long as it was black.
The award-scooping, Swindon-built Civic is an eye-poppingly distinctive car. The Wiltshire town seems to have form in this department: Diana Dors and Julian Clary are all also from there. There are few other mid-market, mass-produced vehicles which manage to stand out from the herd as effortlessly as the Civic. That great sweep of rear lamps sandwiching a split back screen is as attractive a derriere as you’ll find anywhere, in Swindon and beyond.
Inside, the design fun continues. It’s funky and forward looking. The dash features a huge digital speedo with a clever recessed info panel. It hasn’t changed much since the look was first introduced in 2011, yet it still feels modern and fresh. There’s very little leather – well, a tiny strip on the steering wheel – so everything is hard-wearing (black) cloth. My daughter was thrilled – she’s convinced it’s the smell of leather seats that makes her feel car sick.
Looks aside, the Black Edition has a real ace up its sleeve in terms of its engine – one of the most remarkable power plants currently on the road. The super-frugal and super-smooth 1.6 i-DTEC diesel produces 118bhp, baby’s-breath emissions of CO2, just 94g/km, and a combined economy of a whopping 78.5mpg. And it’s only available as a manual (more liberating lack of consumer choice). I hammered down the M3 and back and was astounded to see that, even with my total disregard for hypermiling techniques, it was still netting 65 miles to the gallon.
Other good stuff: it’s comfortable, roomy and has a large boot (half as big again as the Ford’s Focus). It has a decent music system and Bluetooth comes as standard. Bad stuff: it has a fiddly trip computer, no built-in satnav, no cruise-control and no auto lights – options that are usually standard on a car of this price. But these are small niggles, and ones you’ll soon forget about. Unless, of course, you are melanophobic. In which case you’ll still be struggling with your fear of the colour black.
Does your car have a passport?
According to a study of more than 2,300 motorists conducted by the RAC almost half of motorists (45%) who have ever bought a used car privately believe they were deceived in some way by the person who sold it to them – highlighting a worrying lack of trust in the used car buying process. Of the drivers who feel they have been misled, more than two thirds (67%) think they were sold a faulty car and more than a fifth (21%) think they paid too much for what they ended up driving away. Robert Diamond, managing director at RAC Data Services, said: “Buying a car privately can work out cheaper than going through a dealer and is therefore a popular choice in the UK. But clearly many drivers don’t have a lot of trust either in the person they’re buying from, or in the car they end up driving away with. Sadly, motorists are telling us that buying a car privately appears to resemble something akin to motoring roulette.” To help people buy more confidently, the RAC has launched the Car Passport, the most comprehensive car check available in the UK. Buyers can get quick, online access to a wide range of information about their next vehicle including a personalised valuation to verify the seller is charging a fair price; information on a car’s history, such as common reasons for that particular make, model and year of car to break down; and symptoms to look out for in a test drive. For more information about the RAC Car Passport, visit www.rac.co.uk/carpassport. For more information about the RAC’s Vehicle Inspections, visit www.rac.co.uk/buying-a-car/vehicle-inspections.
Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @MartinLove166
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