#HTE

A Great Animated Visualization of the Honda Civic’s Design Evolution

It was fascinating to see the styling similarities between the original Honda Civic and the company’s newly-unveiled Urban EV concept car. Now the folks at Donut Media have helpfully illustrated how the Civic’s design has evolved in the nearly 50 years between those two models:

It’s probably just nostalgia on my part, but I’m struck by how pleasing-to-the-eye the forms of the late ‘80s and early '90s Civics and CRXs still look. The current versions of the car are a little too busy for my tastes; all of the extraneous curves, bulges and surface changes scream “Hey look what we can do now that we have CAD” to me. I understand that they must create something visually flashy enough to catch potential buyers’ eyes, but from a design perspective, the current forms speak to me of a lack of restraint.