Evolutionary: Where the new Honda Civic hatchback gets its good genes

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Success generally comes in finding an opening and then making the most of it. In the case of the humble Civic hatchback, Honda made the most of a small gap in the North American market and leveraged it into a success story. The cars are perhaps no longer quite as small, but you can still feel the ambition in them.

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This one is the new 2022 model, and you’d be forgiven for not thinking it looks much like its ancestors. From the rear doors forward, it’s much the same as the sedan version, which is sized more like a mid-2000s Accord than a compact car. Really, the Civic hatch is more lift-back sedan than hatchback, but pop open its trunk and there’s plenty of access to a generous 693L of cargo room — more if you need by folding the rear seats down.

Better still is the fan service found between the front seats. A manual transmission! And not just any manual, but one of the most satisfying self-selectors on the market. Paired with a fizzy small-displacement turbo four-cylinder engine and a willing chassis, the Civic hatchback hauls in all senses of the word.

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But even with 180 hp on offer (base models make do with a thriftier 158-hp naturally aspirated engine), this car isn’t a Volkswagen GTI or a Subaru WRX. For that kind of firepower, you’ll have to wait until the mighty Type-R arrives. Instead, this is something we thought manufacturers forgot how to make: a zippy little number that offers practical flexibility but puts a shot of delight into every day.

Exactly what a proper Civic hatchback means to most Honda fans. Looking back at the history of the breed, it’s easy to see how we got here, and where Honda made a few blunders along the way.

That’s not a real car

Before the Civic existed, there was the Honda N600, which was exactly the kind of car you might expect a motorcycle company to make as its first effort. Well, not quite “first effort,” as before this puny hatchback, Honda had made the T360 pickup (hardly big enough to haul a single hay bale) and later the S600 (gorgeous, tiny, and the first Honda car sold in Canada).

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The N600 was the first Honda sold in the U.S. market, and it was thrifty but disposable. Powered — and we’re using the word loosely — by a 35-hp two-cylinder engine, it was slow but sipped fuel. Consumers mostly shrugged. The year was 1970 and gas was cheap. Besides, if you were really hard up for cash, there was always a handful of used Volkswagen Beetles in the classifieds. Only the most faithful Honda dealers, many of them originally motorcycle dealerships, stuck with the brand. But the payoff was coming.

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Hard times, great timing

When it launched in 1972, the first Civic entered a car market that was on the cusp of a complete shift in priorities. One year later, the first of the oil crises of the 1970s hit, sending consumers scrambling to leave their big ol’ boats behind in favour of economical compact cars.

With a buzzy little 1.3L engine and minimal options like a two-speed automatic transmission, the Civic was budget-friendly and sipped fuel like an internal-combustion hummingbird. Yet it wasn’t dreary. Power hovered around 50 hp, with later models getting a bit of a bump, but the Civic only weighed about 600 kg. With independent suspension at all four corners, it drove a bit like an Austin Mini, and had a similarly friendly face.

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Suddenly those dealers who had stuck with Honda through their N600 growing pains had lines around the block. Most automotive companies look back on their offerings of the 1970s with a shudder or two, but for Honda, the Civic hatchback was simply a great little car at exactly the right time. There was even a Canada-only version, complete with plaid interior.

Two decades of excellence

The Civic hatchback entered the 1980s with a spirit of optimism. And boxiness. The third-generation cars were far more angular than their groovy 1970s’ predecessor, but they had managed to add more horsepower without packing on the weight.

Perhaps most exciting was the emergence of the Si version of the hatchback. While not quite as hot as the Japanese-market versions, the Civic Si was quick on its feet, pitting 91 hp against a feathery curb weight. It was joined by the short-tailed CRX, which was not officially a Civic hatchback in name, but falls under the same basic principles. We can also file the toaster-like Civic Wagovan in the same category.

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Best of all, for those of patriotic fervour, starting in 1987 you could buy a Civic made right here in Canada. The Alliston, Ontario factory started out producing the larger Accord, but soon added the Civic to the work list. Several decades later, it’s still a busy plant — though when it comes to Civics, currently only the sedan version is Canadian-made .

By the time the 1990s rolled around, the Civic hatchback was an established byword for fun and practicality. If you bought one new, you were guaranteed to enjoy the crisp handling provided by the front double-wishbone suspension (just like an NSX!) and economical engines that still made decent power when you rang them out. If you’d inherited a hand-me-down from your mom, it was straight to eBay to buy an intake and an obnoxious exhaust to live out your Fast and Furious fantasies.

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However, in North America at least, the Civic hatchback was not really a family car. Sold as a three-door model, it was mostly a second car for commuters, a college graduate’s first new car purchase, or a retiree’s runabout. Odds are you were bolting that Folger’s coffee can onto Mom’s former sedan, not her old hatchback. A mass-produced car needs to appeal to the masses, which meant the hatch was living on borrowed time.

Not quite the last hurrah we wanted

The seventh-generation Civic officially killed off most of the enthusiast-friendly engineering of the golden age in favour of a more spacious interior. But it wasn’t all bad news: the three-door hatchback was still around, available with a hot new 2.0L engine. In the US, this Civic was called the Si, but in Canada we called it the SiR, as in “SiR, do you know why I pulled you over?”

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However, there was an elephant in the room. And under the sheetmetal. Previously, basic Civics had been genuine good fun to drive, so the Si versions were just an extra dollop of icing on a delicious cupcake. A switch to a more conventional MacPherson strut setup dumbed down the handling, and the Civic was far plumper than its lithe 1980s and 1990s versions. One sympathizes.

Still, the SiR wasn’t quite as bad as everyone remembers, and it was better than no hatchback at all. For the next two generations of Civic, the hatchback was gone from the North American market.

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Type R for return to form

Three-hundred horsepower makes for a heck of a comeback. When the tenth generation of Civic arrived, the hatch was back, and emblazoned on the back of it was Honda’s mightiest letter.

The plan to bring the Civic Type R to North America was new, but releasing it as a hatchback was simply tradition: nearly every Type R has had an extra door out back. The styling drew a few raised eyebrows — the car looked a bit like a Gundam space robot had thrown up all over it — but the aerodynamics were all functional and the Type R was easily capable of taking the fight to the likes of the Subaru STI.

However, it also cost more than $46,000. Happily, for about two-thirds as much, consumers could get themselves into a well-optioned Civic hatchback that was both easier on the eyes and the wallet. It was still good to drive, but at more reasonable speeds.

Today, the current 2022 Civic hatchback finds itself back in fighting trim. Because it’s a five-door, it has broader appeal to families. In fact, it might just be the perfect blend of nostalgia for your old college-days adventure machine and present-day kid-hauling requirements.

So yes, there’s a new Civic Type R on the way, one that’s sure to grab all the headlines. But the regular Civic hatchback is where the sweet spot is for anyone who ever loved a little Honda. It can carry pretty much anything you need: cargo, passengers, that joy in driving you thought you’d lost forever.