The two-door 2016 Honda Civic has just bowed in Los Angeles, looking a little like an old Ford Fusion mushed into a CR-Z. That must be a good thing because the design’s actually pretty tidy, and even reasonably close to the concept we saw months ago.
If you look close, you can see the Civic Coupe’s been stretched and slammed, just a little. Wheelbase is 2.9” longer, the stance is 1.9” wider, but the overall length of the car has been cut by 5.5” and and the roof dropped 1.4”.
Aesthetically the coupe is identical to the sedan from the windshield forward, but Honda’s designers are especially proud of the “signature-C” LED bar taillight they’ve cooked up.
It’s meant to look like one big piece, but be a little more subtle about it than some other body-width lights [cough Dodge Charger cough.] The glow of the lights fades toward the middle, which is supposed to accentuate the car’s ass like a pair of stripper heels.
At the bottom of the back you can’t see exhaust pipes. They’re there, and even pretty apparent in the press photos, but look completely tucked behind the bumper in person.
Despite the tightening outside, the Coupe’s interior has grown by more than 8 cubic feet. That gives rear seat passengers an extra 5 inches of leg room, which is seriously significant if you’re on the fence between buying a coupe or sedan but you want some semblance of comfort for rear-seat passengers.
The new Civic Coupe sits on the same underpinnings as the sedan, with a new new multi-link rear suspension for ride quality and a tighter seals all around to reduce noise, harshness and vibration (NVH).
Honda is claiming a “58% better seal” on the interior from the outside world versus the old one. I’m not really sure how that’s quantified, but the takeaway is it should be a lot calmer and quieter in the cabin at speed.
To make the ride even more pleasant Honda’s redone their touch-screen infotainment, which now runs a Garmin-sourced GPS and links up with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.
Engine options on the two-door will be the same as the sedan; a 2.0 i-VTEC with 158 horsepower and 138 lb-ft of torque, or a 1.5 turbo with 174 horsepower and 162 lb.-ft. of torque.
Manual transmission’s available on the 2.0 out of the gate, with one “in the works” for the 1.5 turbo. The default gearbox is a Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT), which Honda’s R&D man John Hwang promised me really gets a lot of out the turbocharged engine by keeping the little snail spooled.
Man, if you told my sixteen-year-old past self a Civic would come with a turbo from factory, and not even the performance model? Probably would have soiled myself onto a crumpled up copy of Sport Compact Car.
Speaking of performance variants, Honda is not volunteering any information on the upcoming Civic Type-R at the moment, but stay tuned.
Images by the author, Honda
Contact the author at andrew@jalopnik.com.