Incremental Business Or Next Big Thing?

More like a “liftback” with sharper styling and steering.

- Chris Walton

The 2017 Honda Civic hatchback is a sporty riff on the sedan, and given the car buying habits of Americans, Honda is not expecting its hatch to be a runaway hit. But this new edition is so good that we think Honda might be underestimating its chances.

Honda routinely sells more than 300,000 Civic sedans without breathing hard, and it expects the hatchback to add 50,000 incremental units. It seems like a lot of hassle for a little bonus volume, especially when this global model is imported from Swindon, England—but only after an American-made engine is first shipped across the Atlantic. Maybe Honda just wants to cover its bases.

The Civic's roof, front and rear fascias, and rear glass are unique to the hatch back, so it might help to think of it as a uniquely styled Civic lift back rather than a proper hatchback. Although the slant back glass doesn’t have the upright, boxy silhouette of a traditional hatchback, it does provide an enormous aperture (37.8 by 44.1 inches) when the rear glass is raised. That makes loading bulky items easier. Honda also introduced a right- or left-mounted retractable, detachable cargo cover to eliminate the obstructing full-width bar of a traditional cover.

Built on the same platform as the Civic sedan, the four-door, five-passenger 2017 Honda Civic hatchback will, according to Honda, have more cargo space (25.7 cubic feet with rear seats up and 46.2 cubic feet folded) than the Ford Focus, the Mazda3, and the Volkswagen Golf, its compact hatchback competition. (VW claims the Golf has more room with rear seats folded.) Compared to the Civic sedan’s15.1-cubic-foot trunk, those measurements seem remarkable, but remember sedans and hatchbacks are measured differently (the fitment of calibrated luggage in sedans and multiplication of length, width, and height measurements in hatches and wagons).