The first Honda Civic I ever saw was in 1978. It was a first generation model and I was shocked to see how small it was. Honda introduced the Civic in 1972, and it truly was a subcompact car. With an overall length of 11 feet and standing only 4 ½ feet high, the first generation Civic was the smallest car I had ever seen. I wondered to myself, “Who would even buy one?” In fact, first -year production was just over 30,000 units. The diminutive size seemed ridiculous to me and it impressed me enough that I penned this cartoon:
The current tenth-generation Civic has been the best-selling small car in America every year since its launch in 2012, with sales in excess of 300,000 units each year. American car buyers have purchased more than 10 million Civics over the course of 43 years.