Honda Reveals Longer, Lower, Wider 2016 Civic, Now in Turbo Flavor

Agreed. Double wish-bones of the past allowed automakers to design cars with low hoods and low cowls. Current pedestrian safety regs require higher hoods, taking away one advantage of double wishbones. Macpherson struts' vertical nature allows more leg room for the front occupants. And as proven by BMW and Porsche, struts can be tuned to handle quite well.

@WheelMcCoy Well to be fair, those companies have shown that *with enough money spent on development focusing on performance* a strut setup can handle and ride great. At the price point of a Civic it's hard to get that kind of advanced engineering done and you end up with more compromises. The double wishbones made compromises on ride and suspension travel and packaging in favor of grip and feel. I think one of the great lessons lately in the auto industry is that engineers can force a compromised design to do just about anything with enough development in the proper direction. Hell we've seen the magicians in engineering at Jeep turn Fiat passenger cars into legitimate off-roaders. But you'll still end up with a better one if you start wth a platform intended for that purpose like the Wrangler.

I've own(ed) several of the golden age hondas. 88 Prelude Si 4ws, 89 crx Si, 89 Legend Coupe, 86 civic si. Also drove some 93 and 95 accords that I borrowed from friends. All with dual wishbone, and all 5 spd sticks. In stock form they actually have some pretty great travel. While they are low cars, they feature 13s (86 civic) 14s (crx) and 15 (prelude/legend) inch wheels with way more space under the fenders than your typical modern car. I had to drive the CRX and Legend all across job sites while I was working in construction. Mud, dirt roads, gravel, trails, you name it. I even drove the crx for miles at a time on ballast when I was working on a light rail project (the rocks that sleepers aka ties are laid for train tracks). I don't know exactly how Honda did it, but they achieved magic in that era (86ish to 99ish). I will continue to collect these cars. I also have an 88 starion turbo, and had an 87 mr2 and 92 bmw 750il. The Hondas win on polish, feel, and fun - complete packages. This, despite the fact that they're never the fastest or fanciest.

@WheelMcCoy Every car maker has some feature that characterizes the best of them, and Hondas of a certain era were know for their double wishbones. Logic dictates that modern cars don't need the added expense and complexity, but emotion (and some logic) says otherwise and I am not immune. I bought a 2012 TSX Wagon, which I think is the last in the Acura line-up to have them on all four corners.

@WheelMcCoy "Double wish-bones of the past allowed automakers to design cars with low hoods and low cowls. Current pedestrian safety regs require higher hoods, taking away one advantage of double wishbones." Incorrect. You can have a high hood/high cowl double wishbone design by changing the attachment point of the strut from the lower control arm to the upper control arm. The suspension is still independent from the steering and you can have a seriously jacked up hood. I'd say there's severe limitations on just how high you can go with a single lower control arm setup.