The Civic might not be the most exciting car Honda ever produced, but it’s certainly a legend. It was introduced in 1972 as a 1973 model and won the North American Car of the Year award in 2022. While our ranking of all 11 generations of the Civic is heavy at the top with newer models, the No. 1 spot went to the fourth-gen version, which encompasses the 1988 to 1991 model years. Classic.com also catalogs the fourth generation as the most affordable, with an average sale price of $9,189 over the last five years.
The fourth-gen Civic was offered in hatchback or four-door sedan body styles, and came with an array of four-cylinder engines ranging from 1.3 to 1.6 liters of displacement. At the time, it was the only compact car on the market with an independent suspension at all four wheels, and Car and Driver‘s Rich Ceppos called the 1988 model “arguably the best small sedan you can buy for $11,930 — or anything close.”
[Featured Image by Kallikirchdorf via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0 Deed]
