2025-26 Wheels Car of the Year WINNER: Honda Civic E:HEV L

“The Honda Civic is a car you will buy now, and love from the get go,” observes David Morley during testing. “And then, in six or 12 months, you’ll feel even better about your purchase, because it will keep rewarding you.”

We could sum up the 2025-26 Wheels Car of the Year winner with those words alone and move on to admiring Ellen Dewar’s beautiful photography. However, as is always the case with a great car, the 2025 Honda Civic is much more than the sum of its parts. Perhaps most pleasingly for those of us with a traditional bent, this year’s winner proved that a conventional car can still take the fight right up to – and win against – SUVs thanks to a blend of all-round quality, real-world comfort, space, practicality and driving enjoyment.

First introduced as a much more stylish addition to the Honda range in 2021, and face-lifted for 2025, below is what the other judges had to say about the Honda Civic.

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Peter Robinson:

“Hidden away among the last of my notes for the Civic are three significant words: ‘Best car here.’

“Yes, the handsome and refined 11th-generation Civic delivers responsive, hot-hatch-like performance that’s seamlessly helped by an electric motor. This is combined with terrific economy: the combined official figure is 4.2L/100km, though I averaged 3.9L/100km on one road leg.

“Brilliant steering that’s intuitively weighted and 2.2 turns direct, inspires confidence and works perfectly with the Civic’s natural handling balance and fine roadholding. Faults: needs more equipment at the price,
no spare wheel and excessive rear seat road noise.”

Paul Gover:

“This smooth operator does what the Civic has always done, even if it’s matured to become more like the Accord. It is a lovely car, refined and enjoyable to drive, practical, and beautifully finished. What a pity about the price, given you can’t haggle. It’s a bit anonymous, and the cabin is a little outdated, but it’d be first pick for an interstate drive.”

David Morley:

“Long after the showroom shine has left the chat, the Civic will still be rewarding you with new things you never knew it could do. With bandwidth to spare, it’s the gift that keeps giving. Like being six months into a fresh relationship and discovering your new girlfriend can TIG weld. And you had no idea.”

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The only real chinks in the Civic’s armour were touched on above by judge Gover – the non-negotiable pricing structure favoured by Honda in Australia and the cabin lagging a little in terms of outright modernity. The former is something we’ve disliked at Wheels from the get-go, the latter is something you quickly forget when you realise the tech inclusions are rock solid and work exactly as they should – glitch free. If you want to find just where your personal frustration threshold is though, try to clear the Bluetooth connected devices list… ask the judges how we know.

Across the judging team, there was universal agreement that the Civic was a car that kept getting better the more you drove it. Observing our COTY safety officer and performance tester Karl Reindler during his testing, it was obvious the Civic dealt with the testing criteria with ease.

That feeling of security continued onto the open road, where the judging team thought, “it was a fun car to drive, is really well tied down, and handles significantly better than you might expect”. Add to that the quality of the steering, brakes and ride quality, and you’ve got a compelling package.

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A key point of Civic’s appeal is – Type R aside, of course – the standardisation of hybrid technology across the range. As we saw during testing, it’s a hybrid system with real-world efficiency. Honda claims 4.2L/100km, and across our various testing, Wheels saw an average of 4.3–4.6L/100km without trying to drive efficiently. During easy cruising, you’ll see the live consumption dip into the high 3L/100km range.

Onto price then, and there’s no getting around it, the Civic isn’t exactly cheap. Keep in mind however, that the first five services are capped at just $199 each, required every 12 months or 10,000km. That means it’s cheaper to service than all of its key rivals, and it’s covered by a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty. Running costs and the quality of the Civic itself are key reasons it still nails the value category despite the entry cost.

Two trim grades are available: the entry point e:HEV L we have for Wheels COTY testing, and the e:HEV LX. Pricing starts from $49,900 for the L and from $55,900 for the LX, both before on-road costs. When you consider Australia’s most popular small car, the Toyota Corolla, can be had in hybrid guise from the mid-$30K region before on-road costs, there’s no denying the step up to Civic in regard to price. Do you feel like you’re getting a premium experience though? The COTY judges say yes.

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Safety is also key to COTY judging, as it should be, and the Civic excels here, too. Tested in 2022 by Euro NCAP, that five-star rating translates across to ANCAP in Australia, and with scores of 89 per cent for adult occupant protection, 89 per cent for child occupant protection and 82 per cent for vulnerable road user protection, its executed properly. You can add 83 per cent for safety assist technology to those scores.

While the Civic looks stylish from the outside, it’s the understated, insulated quality of the cabin that sets the tone for Civic ownership. It’s also one of the reasons the judges agree that it will continue to impress long after you’ve signed your life away in the dealership. Given Civic is around 300mm longer than a Corolla, it’s actually on the large side for the small car segment, and as such, the cabin offers space and comfort the rest of the segment can’t match.

The driving position, and indeed the seating position across all four main seats, is low, almost sporty, but it’s not difficult to get in or out of the cabin. Doesn’t matter how tall you are, you’ll be able to get comfortable behind the thin-rimmed steering wheel, heated even in the base model. Visibility from the cockpit is also excellent.

Cabin features include a 9.0-inch infotainment touchscreen, wireless Apple CarPlay, wired Android Auto, proprietary Google apps within the system, a 10.2-inch instrument display, cloth and leather-look seat trim, heated front seats, dual-zone climate control, keyless entry and start, and a 12-speaker Bose audio system. The more expensive variant gets leather trim, electric seat adjustment up front, wireless phone charging capability, a panoramic sunroof and an auto dimming rear-view mirror but as the judges noted, you’re not missing anything of real value here in the base model.

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There is a beautiful simplicity and quality throughout, from the choice of controls and switchgear to the general layout inside the cabin. The judges loved the honeycomb air vent design, the way the dials – temperature and volume, for example – worked, and the choice of materials throughout the cabin. It’s undeniably sophisticated, classy, and elegant, and harks back to the glory days, when Honda was a premium, aspirational brand. The boot offers 409L with the second row in use, but if you lift the manual hatchback and fold those seats down, storage space expands out to 1212L.

Would the judges prefer a spare (even a space saver) instead of a tyre repair kit? Unanimously, yes, especially for buyers who love a road trip. Could the seats fold down in a more space-efficient manner? Yes. That’s about it, though.

For the Wheels COTY judging team though, the proof is in the driving, and the Civic is a stark reminder of what we’ve lost in the rabid rush to SUVs and dual cabs. Bloated, heavy and dull, the majority offer no inspiration behind the wheel, and are simply transport for transport’s sake. You need to spend astronomical sums of money to find an SUV that drives anywhere near as enjoyably as an excellent sedan like the Civic.

First up, the powertrain. The petrol-electric hybrid system isn’t just efficient. It’s smooth around town and under light throttle applications, but punchy and urgent when you want it to be. The electric motor ensures the Civic fires off the line if you need to, and keeps the petrol engine working only when it needs to. The transition between petrol and electric or vice versa, is so smooth as to be almost imperceptible. With 135kW and 315Nm on offer, the power and torque easily account for the Civic’s rather svelte – in 2025 terms – 1465kg kerb weight.

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When you nail the throttle, there’s a throaty engine note, which some might think jars with the premium feel of the Civic, but the judges agreed that it’s a reminder of Honda’s sporting past. Even if it is muted by 2025’s environmental expectations. Honda’s zero to 100km/h time of 7.2 seconds indicates the Civic could keep a few hot hatches honest, such is the punch of the hybrid system.

Out on the open road, cavorting along the rutted and washed out surfaces you’ll find in every state of Australia once you leave the urban confines, the sporty nature of the Civic doesn’t translate to a lack of comfort or bump absorption – quite the contrary. There’s stability in the way the Civic handles such surfaces, with even the nastier bumps not translating to a lack of composure in the cabin.

Fire the Civic into a corner at speed, though, and the nature of the chassis, the balance, the steering and the suspension all work together to provide a much more engaging drive than any of the judges expected going in.

By my calculation, the last time a ‘car’ won this esteemed award – not a sports car or SUV – it was the Volkswagen Golf Mk 7 in 2013, another high point for the tradition of exceptional small cars. For the Honda Civic to take the ultimate prize in 2025 is an achievement of some note, and recognition that a truly exceptional car can still compete at the highest level.

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In the same way last year’s winner was a celebration of innovation and moved EVs into a different space, the Civic’s win this year is a celebration of tradition, quality and execution. New Civic is a fantastic car in every sense of the word, representing value, delivering safety, driving superbly and presenting a high-quality cabin.

It’s a return to form for a legendary Japanese manufacturer, making the Honda Civic a deserving winner of 2025-26 Wheels Car of the Year.

Specs

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