You put a CVT in Drive and ignore it, and it does not feel like anything else you have ever driven, unless you happen to be one of the 14 people who owned an early-90s Subaru Justy. It, too, had a CVT and it was not successful.
Honda will tune the new engine in two ways and both will develop more power than the versions they are replacing.
In the DX and LX trims, the engine is expected to develop 115 horsepower at 6100 rpm and 110 pound-feet of torque at 4500 rpm.
In the EX trim, the same engine will turn out 127 horsepower at 6300 rpm and 114 pound-feet of torque at 4800 rpm.
These peak rpm levels would tend to make a lot of engine noise, but Honda traditionally does a good job of masking such unpleasantness and early reports are that that continues for 2001.
As well as developing more power than the 1.6-litre it replaces, the 1.7-litre is actually smaller and lighter than that unit, by more than 5 percent.
Whatever ride and handling changes result from the suspension redesign, they have apparently paid off in interior room. The exact interior volume number is not known at the moment, but it is big enough to earn the new Civic a "compact" rating by U.S. government measuring standards, up from the "sub-compact" it previously received.