Unfortunately Hondas are not cool. If you read this article you would have seen the Merc C63 AMG Estate, which is cool because it's lethal. Hondas don't have that factor; however they do make good cars. At the time of writing the Accord sedan had just scooped the South African Car of the Year accolade and that's a very prestigious award for any manufacturer.

This Touring version of the Car of the Year has an interesting engine in it. In Honda's attempt to maintain their fuel efficient and green status, they have made the power delivery very linear, so there is absolutely no surge or power increase until 6000rpm when the VTEC system decides that the driver is in the mood to play.

It engages power boost mode, so the exhaust note deepens, the acceleration begins to become noticeable and then, you experience a little of what it's like to open a Christmas present only to find out your dad wrapped up school textbooks for you.

1100rpm after pressing the play button the rev limiter kicks in ? at 7100rpm.

Guess this isn't the point of all wagons, maybe some people use them to transport dogs and other things around economically. Maybe they even have families and go on holiday. In this department you can't really fail with the Accord, it's spacious in the back and front and the loading bay in the back is big enough for the family suitcases.

Well-specced

Gadget wise the Accord is well specced, it has the whole electric seat adjustment, dual zone climate control, automatic (lazy) boot closer a decent trip computer, iPod connector and parking sensors. Inside it's maybe not the most stylish interior but it's not missing anything and, being a Honda, none of it will ever break, or so we'd like to believe.

As a drive there's nothing wrong, smooth over bumps and nicely stiff in the corners and comfortable over long journeys not to mention one of the nicest feeling and easy shifting gearboxes.

As far as competitors go, the sort of omnipresent BMW 325i Touring is up there, along with the other usual suspects like the A4 2.0T FSI and Merc's C200 K Classic Estate. But to be different and because it looks sinister and not boring, I'd stick with the Accord if I had to choose from them.

But would you buy it?

If it were my money however I'd save the extra cash and shop around for an older Alfa 156 GTA wagon and have some real fun (and some style) spending all the money I?d saved on fixing everything that broke down on it.

Check out the specs on page two