I was looking forward to the new Civic. You will only find the technology of its hybrid powertrain at Honda. So he is one of a kind and such loners are becoming rare. More and more brands are gradually losing their signature under the soulless leadership of VW or Stellantis.
I already drove eight cars from the German platform department store from Wolfsburg with almost identical technical specifications; the VW ID.3, ID.4, ID.5 and ID Buzz, the Skoda Enyaq and Enyaq Coupé, the Audi Q4 e-tron and the Cupra Born. At Stellantis, various Opels, Citroëns, DSs and Peugeots were technically wet. Soon you can buy a Stellantis Jeep here with the electric powertrain of the Peugeot 208.
You have my blessing, the technique is perfect. However, those clones saddle the car journalist with an absurd problem. You can no longer credibly test them as separate models, no matter how Opel, for example, tries to camouflage the French DNA with German angularity, which succeeded nicely with the Astra. The cosmetic differences aside, you drive the same car a dozen times. It is no longer possible to judge such a clone on proprietary properties. And how can you recommend someone an expensive plug-in Audi that differs only cosmetically from a Skoda from the same house that is now almost equally expensive? To do that you have to do what enslaved automakers do to keep up appearances; bad acting. From a next new VW model I intend to test only the first in the series. My message will be this: Hi readers, this is the new VW ID.Sister. Doubles of Audi, Seat, Skoda and Cupra are on their way. Feel free to buy them, because her brothers will drive just as well as the Zus. People negotiate tight, the prices are astronomical again. And let’s hope that the last independent players will keep my displaced love for the can alive.
It feels despondent. You see brands that proclaim their chosenness with pretentious marketing campaigns shrinking to empty shells. I, born in a time when you bought a Citroën for the spring bulbs and an Audi for the Voorsprong Door Techniek, think it’s a pitiful loss.
Sadly, it seems like the inevitable course of things. This week I received a press release announcing a new corporate identity for the dormant brand that used to call itself Lancia. ‘Pu+Ra Design’, I read, will become the ‘pure and radical design language that will define the design of Lancia models for the next 100 years.’
Vincenzo Lancia had said: Shouldn’t we build a car first? But he’s already there, we all know, and he’s from Paris. He just needs a jacket. As lovers we could cry tears with tears. We could also see that Lancia is cleverly responding to a new reality that everyone could have seen coming. The car brand becomes a kind of clothing line, the fashionable exterior. In that world, Opel will soon be the new Adidas, Audi Hugo Boss on wheels and Lancia probably a kind of Gucci. More and more millennials with pragmatic mobility needs will be the worst, as long as they can still afford cars. The acoustic kick of the combustion engine, once the characterological core of your car, has been lost for the plug era. Unique is then only the wearer, and not even that.
Long live Honda! Fantastic car by the way, that Civic. Not only because it drives so great, but also because it is still made to be itself. He does.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl