Civic Sedan

Make
Honda
Segment
Sedan

The new Honda Civic has just been revealed in near-production prototype form, and it looks absolutely stunning - at least when compared to the quirky design of its predecessor. As happy as we are to see that this is the case, there was another more important detail that we were interested in confirming, namely that the new Civic may be offered with all-wheel-drive, a feature that would make it more competitive with rivals like the Mazda 3 that has just recently been offered with such a system, years after the possibility was first considered. However, an interview with Car and Driver has revealed that Honda won't be following suit.

This is contrary to an earlier statement from Honda that seemed to indicate that a definite decision had not been made and that the possibility of an AWD Civic was still in the cards. Still, with Honda selling over 1.5 million Civics domestically, we don't think that a front-wheel-drive-only offering will negatively impact sales of the latest model too much. In fact, this could be a good thing, as part of the Type R's magnetism for enthusiasts is that it features a manual gearbox and only one axle handling power delivery. Perhaps if AWD were fitted to lesser models, Honda would be tempted to include it on the racy model, which would thus appeal less to some fans.

In any case, we'll still be excited to see the full launch and discover what the new Civic will use in terms of powertrains, although deviation from the current 2.0-liter and 1.5-liter turbo offerings is unlikely. We should get more details as we get closer to the spring 2021 launch date, but until then, the current Honda Civic is still a great option for those who want something reliable and fun to drive. Whatever happens with the new model, it's likely only a matter of time before electric powertrains with a motor on each axle eventually make their way to the Civic.