The Honda Civic Tourer’s most obvious selling point is boot space. There’s a huge 624 litres if you include the room beneath the boot floor. Unsurprisingly, we found space for each and every item in our typical holiday luggage.
Fuel economy is another strength, with an official combined figure of 72.4mpg. We tested the Civic Tourer’s economy when towing and found it achieved 28.9mpg towing a caravan around a mix of A-roads and motorways.
However, while it may not have been using much fuel, the Civic did tend to move around at 60mph and beyond, especially in breezy conditions. The lane-change test proved a challenge, with the caravan tugging hard at the back of the Honda.
In the hill-start test, the handbrake needed a firm pull to hold the outfit still, and a careful balance of clutch and throttle was necessary to pull up the 1-in-6 slope. After reversing a little way up the other side of the hill the clutch was rather smelly.
Go for the top-of-the-range EX Plus spec and there’s no shortage of standard kit, including a reversing camera with a good view of the towball. However, this does push the price up to the wrong side of £27,000, which is rather steep, even if Honda’s well-deserved reputation for reliability makes the Civic a sensible long-term buy.