1996 Honda Civic HX Coupe Test Drive

The Civic name had been magic for over 20 years. For 1996, the sixth time, Honda revised the automobile that will be forever considered as the first Japanese foray onto the American market. Despite a name that suggest, more than any other, a sense of responsibility and obedience, the Civic had long been the automotive incarnation of every impish character of storybook fame. Not that that’s surprising, coming from Honda, which began devoting serious efforts to the automobile only in the early 1970s. Brilliant, precocious, irrepressible,the Civic had evolved in pace with Saichiro Honda’s firm. It was the first Japanese car to really make it on the American market. And the first small, frugal Civic appeared in the middle of the so-called “oil-crisis”. For legions of North Americans, it certainly looked like an oasis surrounded by miles of desert. In the 23 years leading up to the 1996 model, as no other small car has, the Civics had managed to reconcile the lofty and paradoxical expectations associated with its model category. With remarkable ease, they managed to master the innumerable and merciless constraints that small cars invariably suffer. And they’ve done it with uncommon technical and aesthetic grace-long Honda’s most distinctive trait. For years, they’ve managed to be efficient, practical, reliable, sturdy, energetic and durable without ever being boring. Well, almost never, which is still saying alot. So its no surprise that they were, and are so popular on this continent.