1999 Honda Civic VTi Aerodeck review from UK and Ireland

So far nothing has gone wrong with the Honda – it is of course ‘only’ four years old and given Honda’s reputation I would expect nothing less.

Just two slight niggles: firstly, it is sometimes a little difficult to start on cold damp mornings (but then, aren’t we all).

Also, when driving at speed it has a couple of small rattles from one of the doors on the passenger side – but nothing too annoying and certainly nothing the stereo can’t cover up.

Niggles? That’s exactly what they are. If I were really trying to take points off, then the (passenger) electric window switches are difficult to get to, some of the plastics are slightly low-quality (after all, new, this was a £17,000 car) and quite a few of the switches are exactly the same parts as were fitted to my previous 1992 Rover 416.

To be honest, driving this car is a strange experience.

On one hand, there’s the utterly mental performance – 167bhp, 0-60mph in (depending on who you listen to) 8.0 – 8.5 seconds, 140mph max – really, on the road you can’t use the full rev range in 1st or 2nd gear. It is front wheel drive and has no traction control or limited-slip differential so it torque steers (twitches) … quite a lot… when the power gets going. For those not in the know – the VTEC system changes the way the valves open, so at 4000rpm the engine’s just getting going, and at 5500rpm… you’re going too fast to be watching the revcounter.

(Disclaimer: Remember, children, speed kills. Don’t do this with your mother in law in the car, on a road that you don’t know, or if you’re tired, drunk, the road’s wet or in fact at all if you’re going to blame me for anything that happens to you. I’m just giving a picture of the car.) The first time you come off a roundabout onto an empty dual carriageway in the countryside in second, floor it to maybe 5000 (40-50mph). Flick up into third, all the way to 8000rpm which is, well, quite enough to be going on with (nearly 90). Then there’s fourth… if you have any petrol in your veins you’ll be grinning and loving the musical howl that the engine is singing to your right foot.

I live near Exmoor, and taking it up there for some fun was exactly that – fun. It’s not the best handling car in the world; it hasn’t enough grip or traction at the front end, and the seats don’t hold you quite tight enough. That said, if you behave, drive properly, slow in fast out, you can have a great time. (And stay within the speed limit, remember…)

However… on the other hand, it’s a comfortable, quiet, and very spacious family car, fully loaded with leather, electric windows, roof, mirrors, air-conditioning, ABS… A lot of owners – the sort of people who still buy Hondas for their reliability and have just had a nice flat cap and pair of slippers for Christmas – probably never use the performance and it’s quite driveable without ever going over 4000rpm – on the motorway 70mph is about 4000rpm in fifth gear, with 90mph about 5000rpm.

Driven like this you might even get it to be reasonably economical (35mpg?). Personally the most I’ve seen in three months is 32mpg, mostly because half of my commute to work is on a usually empty dual carriageway (at 6am…)

When I bought this car, I was looking for something that would put a smile on my face. Nothing else I drove this side of a Nissan 200SX did that, and certainly nothing else was as fast. It’s coming skiing with me to the French Alps next month…