Nick if you can't feel the difference between the 7th gen 115 HP Civic and the all new 140 HP model you must be asleep. Read what the critics have been saying about this car, yes the look and specifically the interior will turn some people off. But they will also turn a lot of younger buyers ON, and that is what Honda's goal was with this car, to reclaim the younger buyers who had wandered over to the Mazda 3... If you had driven the competitive cars back to back as I did last week, it would be impossible to come away from that experience thinking that the Civic was not going to do VERY well in the compact market. Compared to a Corolla, the new Civic looks 15 years newer in interior design. We also drove Corolla, Cobalt, Mazda 3, and Sentra. The only car in that group that was competitive was the Mazda. And the safety issue will help the new Civic sell to older more practical buyers, side curtains and standard ABS on all models are features that will force the competition to add content if they want to keep up.
