What's the news?

The Honda Civic Tourer, that's what - the first time there's been a Civic estate since the old Aerodeck (remember those?) of the early nineties.

Honda showed off a concept version of the new Tourer last year, but this is the first time we've seen the actual production version. And instead of just being a Civic with some extra metalwork, the Civic Tourer is throwing up a few surprises.

First off it's huge in there, with a seats-up boot volume of 624 litres, which Honda is claiming as the best in the class. Better yet, fold the rear seats flat and you get 1,688 litres, which is astonishingly a bigger volume than you'd find under the rear end of a Volvo V70.

Honda is paying attention to keeping the vast loads you'll be able to fit in there under control too. We believe that the rear axle on all Civic Tourers will come as standard with expensive adaptive electronically controlled dampers, which should help keep things nice and level.

The rear seats are, of course, still the "Magic" seats, which means that as well as folding flat, the seat bases can be flipped up vertically to allow you to store tall items securely in the back. There's no fold-flat front passenger seat though, so the load length is pegged at 1.8 metres.

Engine options for the moment will be limited to just the 140hp 1.8 VTEC petrol and the brilliant 120hp 1.6 i-DTEC diesel, but other variants should come on stream in time. Honda expects that as many as a quarter of all Civic sales be of the Tourer.

Anything else?

All that load volume comes from Honda extending the Civic out back behind the rear wheels. The Tourer's rear overhang is 235mm longer than that of the hatchback. Prices for the Tourer should be around £900 more than the equivalent hatchback.