Features

You can almost see it now. Grandma's going to have some sort of fit. Breathing quick and shallow, she clutches at her chest, points with a wizened claw at the car, and pants heavily at the new Honda Civic parked outside. "What... on... God's... green... earth... is... that?"

She has every right to be worried; in the right colour the Civic looks so mentalist the bridge club might burn poor old Grandma as a witch, just for turning up in it. It doesn't look much like a car. More like an escape pod.

The last Civic was a packaging-friendly cuboid with the same stylist as the pickaxe and the shovel. Form presided over by Function's hobnail boots, and sod the frippery, job done with the same desire factor as a cardboard box.

Even the Type-R was aggression squeezed manfully from possibly the least dynamic-looking thing since the Lada Niva Cossack. It worked, no mistake; was clever, efficient and impressive in its own little quiet way, but was the Christmas jumper of cars.

But no more. The new Civic has new wave coolness dripping from every triangular-themed pore and more design than you can shake a digital memory stick at.

It looks as if the designers drugged the marketing watchdogs and slipped this one onto the forecourts before anyone had a chance to mention that such radical looks might be two fingers too many for Honda's loyal-unto-death (disconcertingly literally) Civic audience.

But it's the beginning of a fresh start, and it's gone deep enough to expose some of Honda's more forward-thinking freshness. The exterior may take some time to get used to, but it's not actually that bizarre after a few hours' exposure and the right colour choice.

Start at the front and the major keys are easy to see; the headlights and front badges are all covered over in one cyclopean swish of frontal glazing, with only the triangular fogs sitting underneath.

The profile is kept clean by Alfa-style hidden rear door handles; the front pair moulded into a dagger shape set into a recessed, kite-shaped cavity.

The wheelarches are large - dwarfing the 17-inch alloys on our car and making the Civic look a bit high-waisted. A larger set of 18-inchers are an option, however, and the squat stance and big arch line make you think it needs them.