First Look: 2022 Honda Civic Hatchback
Three-pedal purists can opt for the Sport or Sport Touring grades, which come with an optional 6-speed manual transmission.
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Honda leaned on the musical stylings of R&B artist H.E.R. and OVO DJ Majid Jordan to help set the vibe during the recent global digital reveal of the 2022 Honda Civic Hatchback, a car the brand says is squarely aimed at the young and active.
But if you don’t know or care who those artists are (or even understand what that sequence of letters means), don’t worry, you can skip the performance and learn all about the car here.
For the 2022 model year, Honda has put together a pretty tempting 5-door version of its Civic, the best-selling car in Canada for 23 years in a row. Globally, the hatchback Civic now accounts for around 20 per cent of all Civic sales.
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The new Honda hatch builds on the all-new 11th-gen Civic revealed earlier this year , with an exterior design inspired by European sportbacks that gives it a little more of a coupe-ish, some might say less hatchback-ish, look. Honda also smoothed the lines overall by changing the hatch structure to reduce the hinge size—this latter change also allows the rear door to open even wider (40 millimetres wider), which in turn allows all those young and active drivers to cram even more young and active stuff in.
It’s clearly a Civic, but there are enough cues to distinguish it from the sedan, including the honeycomb-style grille, which is a dead giveaway from the front angle. The car will be available with two new paint options including Boost Blue Pearl and Smoky Mauve Pearl.
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Canadian shoppers will have a choice of two power sources over three trims: the lower-level LX model houses a naturally aspirated 2.0L four-cylinder making 158 horsepower and 138 lb-ft of torque, while the Sport and Sport Touring models get a turbocharged 1.5L four-cylinder producing 180 horsepower and 177 lb-ft of torque.
The headline-grabbing six-speed manual transmission will be an available option for each of the three trims, otherwise a continuously variable transmission — with paddle shifters for the Sport and Sport Touring trims — comes standard.
In terms of performance, it should stack up pretty evenly against the existing Civic sedan. The brand talks up its “sportier driving experience,” which is no doubt aided by the 19 per cent stiffer body structure and the presence of a stick shift, but the “fun-to-drive” drum that Honda keeps beating here will likely be struck even louder and with more vigour when the Civic Type R drops later this year.
Marking a first for Honda, production for the new Civic Hatchback is set to begin this year at the brand’s plant in Greensburg, Indiana. Pricing and more details will be released in the coming months.