Kenichi Nagahiro did not want to make a diesel engine.

After all, the top Japanese engineer worked for Honda. It did not make diesel engines – petrol engines, Formula One engines, motorbike engines, even speedboat engines, yes. Not diesels.

But to compete in Europe, where diesels now account for more than half the vehicle sales market, you have got to have an oil-burner in the mix.

"So if I had to build a diesel, it had to be the best," said a resigned Nagahiro.

He is also very modest. To his fellow engineers in Japan and Europe he is highly revered as the man who invented the Honda V-TEC, variable valve timing technology.

Nagahiro has now taken some pretty well tried and trusted diesel technology and honed it to what he considers near perfection. The 2.2-litre common rail direct injection engine makes its European debut in the Accord over the next couple of months, reaching the UK in February 2004.

Honda boasts class leading torque, low fuel consumption and emissions which even escapes the UK’s 3 percent Benefit In Kind tax penalty for company car drivers

The new 2.2 i-CTDi engine is the first diesel unit to be fully designed and developed in-house by Honda – it has previously used an Isuzu unit. A combined fuel consumption of 52.3 and peak torque of 340 Nm at just 2,000 rpm, are both improvements on the benchmark Audi A4 TDi 130 and BMW 320d.

The engine specification includes second-generation common rail direct injection, four valves per cylinder, DOHC, variable nozzle turbocharger and intercooler. Particularly significant is the lightweight of the engine, made possible by an original, Honda-developed production technique.

This will be the first in a family of diesel engines from Honda. This particular engine will be seen next in the CRV.