Have you ever experienced a sudden feeling of familiarity while in a completely new place? Or the feeling you’ve had the exact same conversation with someone before?
This feeling of familiarity is known as déjà vu, a French term meaning “already seen”.
This week seeing the sun hit Donegal the way it did brought the county to full bloom, and while for some, it’s the “in thing” to do to post pictures of a far off holiday resort sitting by the pool, I thought I would live in “the now” and post up a couple of photos of our own beautiful county with the beautiful new Honda Civic we checked out this week.
A motorbike tourist slows up to have look at the all new Honda Civic which we had down on the coast road around Knockala this week. Photo Brian McDaid
Deja Vu, that’s what it felt like when I stepped in behind the wheel of the New Honda Civic when I collected it from The New Honda Showroom of Highland Motors at the Mountain Top in Letterkenny. It felt like slipping into a good pair of shoes after you’ve broken them in.
I had three Hondas as family cars, a Honda Aerodeck, a CRV and a Civic S, all of which gave me great service racking up 60,000 miles plus on each. I know this is a completely new car, and new platform but it feels familiar all the same, in a nice way.
We imagine we don’t change that much ourselves over the years until we look at cars made 20 years ago and realise how small they were compare to the cars today. To me the New Honda Civic has grown over the years since it was first launched in 1972.
Sitting inside the new Civic it feels more like the room of the old Honda Accord Aerodeck but outside it has managed to look only slightly bigger than the 9th generation Civic it replaced. Honda cars always had a low stance on the road and this Civic is no exception, but once you are in behind the wheel the driving position has a great feeling to it.
The black headlining on the roof of the Civic that we drove made the driving position feel even lower, and as I was heading down the mountain top from the showroom I had the sudden urge to weave, to move the steering wheel from left to right behind the line of slow moving traffic to warm up my tyres, just like Matt Neal or Gordon Shedden would do before each round of the BTCC racing in their Works Honda Civics.
It’s just the way the high centre console is placed and the feel of the short throw six speed gear shift and the bare metal pedals that make the Civic very hard to hide its motorsport pedigree.
I am told that at the Motor show in Paris recently of all the new cars launched none of them were diesel, so for the meantime the New Civic will only be available in petrol.
Out with the old and in with the new. The all new Honda Civic pictured out and about in Ramelton this week. Photo Brian McDaid
This isn’t a massive problem for anyone who has been a big Honda Civic fan over the different generations of the model because though the Civic was available in diesel it was a 2.2 litre unit and at the time of its launch it was still in the very high road tax bracket so unless you were doing very high mileage the first of the diesel Civics were not a great option in Ireland anyway. The last generation of the Civic had the 1.6 diesel model available. But this new model was launched without a diesel.
Small is beautiful
The biggest selling model of the new Civic, some 70% is forecast to be the model with the New Honda three cylinder 998cc turbo petrol unit. Honda have expressed their confidence in this new engine set up because they don’t offer another engine at the entry level. Other car manufactures have a small engine set up like this in their range but they also have other options.
Honda is looking at the bigger picture with this new Civic. And I should have guess that when I sat inside it. All that room wasn’t just for me. This is Honda’s first real world car, and it will fit an American in Boston as well as it will fit me in Ballyboe!
Even if Donald Trump thinks that there is no such thing as global warming, his people are thinking differently, they are going for the smaller engine cars. With Honda holding three of the top ten selling car places in the U.S. with the Accord, the CRV and the Civic only matched by another Japanese car manufacture Toyota who have the RAV the Corolla and the Camry also in the top ten.
Driving the New Civic with the 998cc petrol engine is amazing. At the end of a day driving it around Donegal I felt it felt more powerful than the old 1.8 Honda Civic I once drove as our family car but not as powerful as the 2.0 ES Aerodeck. The 988 cc petrol turbo engine pumps out a very creditable 127BHP thats only 10 brake horse power less that the older bigger Honda engine of yesteryear, the turbo boosted engine comes in early – the car feels more powerful earlier on in the range to that to the V-tec engine which had to be really pushed to being them into the second faze of the power output.
The car’s lower stance on the road gives the car a great grip on the road ahead. The new Civic has a longer wheelbase than it predecessor so it is more relaxed to drive. Even if you mistakenly have this car in the wrong gear, like me on the odd occasion it pulled away with ease. This will give you a good idea how much torque this small powerful petrol engine has.
Great rear. The all New Honda Civic which drew a lot of attention this week when we drove the car around Donegal. Photo Brian Mcdaid
Summing up, I spent the last thirty years trying to get drivers to buy diesel power cars and now I am telling them to go back to petrol. A diesel car will always be easier on fuel than a petrol car but its the refining of the diesel and the gasses it produces that are going to be where the increased cost will be incurred in the future with stricter emissions.
This New Honda is a new generation of petrol cars for the future and like the Toyota C-HR which I recently drove both are only available in Petrol versions from their launch, both have a 988 cc turbo petrol engine and both are producing the same amount of power of old engines twice their size in cubic capacity (CC).
This new Honda Civic will be very good on fuel over 50 MPG, that is if you want it to be that way and drive it easy. It also is very nippy and will take you from 0-100kph in 10 seconds, in doing so will give the best of both worlds.
On the road the New Civic is well priced starting off at €24.395 on the road, which in my opinion is great value for money.
The New Honda Civic pictured out on the road in Donegal this week as we took advantage of the great summer weather. Photo Brian McDaid
And finally…
A big word of appreciation for the Motor Industry in Donegal who are coming together to raise money for this years Relay for Life, and are going to compete in a race to push their brand of car around a course in Letterkenny on Thursday the 20th.
The Motor Industry pictured this week at the press launch to announce details of their forthcoming car push in aid of Relay For Life which with take place on Thursday the 20th of April in Letterkenny. Photo Brian McDaid
Great to see them all getting involved. A small word of advice, there are hills in Letterkenny where you can’t see hills as we we were to find out many years ago when we pulled a Fire Engine for “People in Need” in 1989, I have included a photo of us firemen some of whom are gone from this world, including Sam O’Donnell, Eamon Harvey and Benny Daly Rest in Peace pictured with Danny Greive, Tony Coyle, Micheal Herrity, Ronnie White, Eddie Curran and myself Brian McDaid with Tommy Friel, a retired fireman who steered the fire tender.
Fire Engine Pull in 1989, in Letterkenny for People in Need. Included are Benny Daly RIP, Eddie Curran, Eamon Havey RIP, Danny Greive, Sam O’Donnell RIP, Brian McDaid, Tony Coyle and Michael Herrity.
We didn’t push our fire engine. A 1982 Denis platform, we pulled it… we pulled the fire engine from the station house at the Oldtown along the old railway road (now called the Pearse Rd.) towards the station.
We were going great until we passed JJ Reid’s garage and the fire engine started to slow down, it was only then that we realised we were pulling the Seventeen-and-a-half tonne fire engine up a steady incline the whole way to the station.
Happy Motoring Folks
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