Civic pride for award

9:50am Friday 30th December 2005

THE Swindon-built Honda Civic has beaten off fierce competition to be named car of the year.

The new model, rolling off the production line at the South Marston plant at the moment, was Test Drive magazine's Car of the Year 2005, ahead of 5,000 competitors.

Judges at the magazine said it was "light years ahead" of the old Civic and added: "The futuristic looking Honda turns the compact family car market on its head."

The car, which costs from £12,700 to £18,000, was also praised for its practicality, spaciousness and running costs.

Renault's Modus mini MPV won the magazine's Reader's Award and the Citroen C2 was voted best city car.

The first ever Civic rolled off an assembly line in Japan all the way back in 1972. The Civic is Honda's most successful car of all time and accounts for one third of the manufacturers' sales since it was first built. It is built in 11 countries and sold in 160, which is practically every country in the world.

The latest Civic is its eighth incarnation. It was during the fifth generation (1991-95) that passenger car manufacturing started in Swindon in 1994.

The latest Honda Civic is currently arriving at showrooms all over the UK and mainland Europe.

The Honda workforce have watched the new Civic grow from a concept to full production and is now ready to conquer UK and Europe.

A spokesman for Honda said: "The development of the new Civic has perfectly mirrored Honda's global theme The Power of Dreams which means not only coming up with new ideas but also having the determination to turn those ideas into reality.

"Honda's customer research revealed that while customers of the outgoing model found the car useful in everyday life, they would also appreciate a more compact and sportier body to match the handling that has also been one of the main attributes of the car in Europe."