The Civic made its debut in 1972 as a compact three-door hatch, a basic configuration that continues as the backbone of the Civic range today. It imitated much of the Fiat 127's basic layout - a transverse-engined, front-wheel-drive hatch suspended by MacPherson strut suspension, a layout which came to characterise the archetypal compact vehicle at a time when the Golf was nothing more than a twinkle in Guigiaro's eye. The Civic's relatively clean lines were unusual for Japanese and American cars of the time, even if it looked slightly fussy compared to the contemporary simplicity of the Fiat and, particularly, the Renault 5. 'They were products of the conventional ABCs of car design, and we decided it was time to rearrange the alphabet to establish a new and original approach,' explains Shinya Iwarura, Honda's chief research and development director.
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Honda's supermini was powered by a transversely-mounted, all-alloy, sohc 8-valve 1.2-litre engine that developed 54bhp at 5500pm. Power was sent to the front wheels via a four speed manual transmission or a clever two-cog automatic gearbox, dubbed Hondamatic, that did without a torque converter, enabling Honda to offer it at a lower price to traditional autos. Domestic and US-bound versions were fitted with the Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion CVCC engine, a two-stage combustion engine designed to comply with the impending American emission legislation - the Muskie Law and Clean Air Act of 1975. But Europe, whose emission laws were less stringent at this point, did without the CVCC technology. This 1.5-litre engine developed a healthy 62bhp, its CVCC lean-burn stratified charge technology so effective that the engine passed the strict laws without a catalytic converter until 1983. The CVCC technology was susbsequently bought by Isuzu, Toyota, Chrysler and Ford, the blue oval adapting it and eventually using it on its CVH engines for the Fiesta and Escort, though these were never as smooth as Honda's units.The Civic may have been an urban car, but that didn't stop Honda offering a high performance version, the strangely named Road Sailing, or RS, using a tweaked 1.2-litre that was good for 75bhp at 6000rpm, which back then, was quite a lot. Performance models would always feature in the Civic line-up.
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In Europe, only rust would tarnish the car's reputation, flaking paint - which used to come off both Civics and Accords in depressingly large swathes - sending many cars to the crusher prematurely. Amazingly, this rather fundamental fault did not undermine Honda's reputation in the way that Alfa's and Lancia's suffered with similar problems. And indeed, within four years, production at Honda's Suzuka plant had already reached the magical one million mark, outstripping motorbike production, and the car sold unchanged for seven years. The first Civic might not have had the same effect as the Beetle did on global markets, but it certainly made its mark.
