The Honda Civic is a Japanese car.
‘Wow Kerbsider, thanks for that,’ I presume you might think or say, but hopefully you can grant me some semblance of respite as I try and get to the bottom of my point.
Yes the Honda Civic is Japanese. If so why does it give more of a flavour of Neo-Americana better than any other car on sale in the UK?
Generally speaking, Europe is the home of the exported car. Very few cars in Europe are solely sold on the European market alone. Most European manufacturers sell their cars globally and are usually keen to conquer every market on the seven continents, although I’d be surprised if any of them had the audacity to set up a showroom in Antarctica (it’d be pretty cool if they did).
The point I’m trying to make is that the American car market has loads and loads of cars that they don’t sell anywhere else due to lack of appeal, or more realistically due to a lack of roads large enough for them.
As a result, in Europe we do not tend to get many pure-breed American cars in Europe. Yes, the Ford Fiesta in America is the same as the one here, and the Ford Mustang is in Europe in an official capacity but we don’t get massive Chevys, Dodges, GMCs or Fords.
We don’t get much exposure to American cars, and this is where the Civic fits in.
It has side lights on its front bumper. At night, these little orange diodes immediately transform any environment that a new Honda Civic is driving through from dreary Britain to glitzy America. A Civic pootling along the coast of Lincolnshire is now driving down the Pacific Coast Highway towards Malibu. A Civic driving through deserted Central Manchester is now dipping through Brooklyn side streets whilst dodging yellow New York taxis.
Those little lights, nestled deep in the corners of the Civic’s bumper, and their mandatory inclusion thanks to American laws, are so very powerful.
You see those lights and you can’t help but be catapulted across the Atlantic on some amazing voyage at least until the Civic passes out of sight, and you once again find yourself standing in the dark in Wittingly-on-Spey or some other such ancient British village.
Kerbside 