The Nearly Forgotten Civic Wagovan Might Be Honda’s Path to the Future

Launched at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, the Honda Saloon is the flagship for the company’s upcoming 0 Series electric vehicles. All praise Soichiro, it’s not just another crossover, though it’s not really a saloon (what the British call a sedan), either. Intended to breakaway from the heavy, bulky EVs that are most commonplace in the market today, the Saloon is built to be lightweight with a low floor and slippery aerodynamics. But if the future’s not a sedan, and not a crossover, then isn’t it maybe… a van?

Or perhaps Honda’s marketing folks won’t get quite so bent out of shape if it’s pointed out that the Saloon is a reborn Honda Shuttle. And yes, that’s “reborn.” This new EV might look like something from the latest series of Star Trek shows, heavy on computer graphics, but it’s a direct descendant of a boxy and useful little Honda that got many a family to and from their explorations.

You might know the Civic Shuttle better as the Wagovan, though it was also just referred to as the Civic Wagon in some markets. (And also, adorably, as the Civic Shuttle Beagle X in Japan’s home market, when fitted with fog lights and a pushbar like a Subaru Outback.) Formerly a not-uncommon sight on North American roads, the utilitarian Wagovan has become a victim of the attrition that affects many working cars. Coupes and hot hatchbacks stick around, but the more pedestrian cars that ferried people around get used up and thrown away. Happily, here are two survivors to help show how Honda’s future can take a lesson from the company’s golden age.

The first- and second-generation Honda Civic Wagon was a conventional small wagon, as might compete directly with wagon versions of the Datsun 510 or Toyota Corolla. You can see a red example lurking in the background of a few of these photos, nicely restored and also, by the way, with 500hp+ worth of turbocharged Honda K20 under the hood. It belongs to Justin March, who has also recently acquired the low mileage, light gold 1989 Wagovan you see before you.

The other Wagovan is a 1987 model with twice the mileage of March’s AWD. Having sat around for about a decade, it was rescued by current owner Bobby Lisle, who reports that it needed little more than some fluid changes and a set of new tires to make it faithfully roadworthy again. It’s a 1980s Honda. This is what they do.

March’s Wagovan is what you might call OEM+, as he’s gone through it and fitted subtle, Honda factory options that never came on this car. It’s got power windows and locks, an optional center console that basically nobody in North America ordered, and even A/C. Lisle’s machine is a little more period-correct modified, with a set of funky, tiny alloy wheels, and a wrap job featuring Expo Ernie, the mascot for the 1986 World Exposition on Transportation and Communication. Held in Vancouver, Expo ’86 drew some twenty-two million visitors, filled with the optimism of what the future of mobility was going to look like.

Sadly, we now know that quite a lot of that mobility is functional-but-dull crossovers. However, around the time Expo ’86 was luring people to its floating McDonald’s “McBarge,” the family hauler that was quickly supplanting the traditional station wagon was the minivan. Championed by Chrysler (with a nod to Europe’s contemporary equivalent, the Renault Espace), the minivan offered boxy practicality for hauling around your corduroy-clad brood. Honda wanted in on the action, and it wasn’t going to wait around to come up with the Odyssey.

The third-generation Honda Civic arrived for the 1984 model year with a variety of different body styles riding on a shared platform. For flexibility, there was a three-door hatchback. For conventional practicality, a four-door sedan was your best bet. If you were a commuter who wanted Honda efficiency but also something sporty for the weekend, the dock-tailed CRX was the business.

But for maximum haulage-per-footprint, the Wagovan was the way to go. Featuring a rear seat that reclined or could be folded forward for maximum cargo space, a high roof with large rear side windows protected by metal rails, and even a large storage cubby above the rear spoiler, the WagoVan made the most of its Civic-sized floorpan. The best fun feature on Lisle’s ’87 is the button on the dashboard that instantly deploys a couple of extra vents. You get the same thing in a powered version on a Jaguar F-Type, but good luck with that still functioning when it’s thirty-seven years old like this Honda.

The first Wagovans were just front-wheel-drive, but starting in 1985, Honda introduced a push-button all-wheel-drive system. This was a first for Honda, and thus every modern CR-V or Ridgeline can trace its roots back to this boxy Civic ancestor.

March’s Wagovan is a later model with Honda’s updated Real-Time all-wheel-drive. This system automatically engages the rear wheels when there’s slippage from the front, and also has a push-button lower gear for the automatic transmission. It’s nowhere near as complex as Honda’s later all-wheel-drive systems, but the basics start here.

There’s a carbureted 1.5-liter engine under the hood of the ’87, but the AWD Wagovan has a pretty exotic powerplant for 1989. It’s the same double-overhead-cam 1.6L four-cylinder you got in the contemporary CRX, peppy at just above 100 hp. Both of these cars seem mostly built of air, with huge greenhouses and tiny A-pillars. Visibility is excellent, and they’re both quick and lively in the way vintage Hondas can be. Not fast, certainly not furious, just fun.

However, because the Wagovan is mechanically a Civic underneath, the sky’s the limit for tuning. Noted SoCal Honda specialist Bisi Ezerioha, of Bisimoto, built a 1988 Civic WagoVan fitted with one of his lunatic Honda D-Series engines good for a staggering 724 hp. He followed this up with a 1991 Wagovan with a 2.4L K24 out of a 2014 Civic, paired with the all-wheel-drive system out of a CR-V.

If you’d like to build up a hot Honda, a Wagovan makes for an interesting and relatively uncommon choice. Even in factory trim, however, it’s a neat car, a collectible from a time when things seemed simpler. By 1991, the WagoVan was dead in North America, the nail really hammered into the coffin by the arrival of the CR-V in the mid-nineties. Today, your available Civic flavors are hatchback or sedan, though arguably the HR-V is a lifted Civic.

The idea of an electric skateboard platform, one that could accommodate any number of body styles, was something we were told would be a big part of the electric future. So far, it hasn’t really happened yet.

But perhaps with Honda’s next-gen EVs, it could. A small, lightweight van with some of the characteristics of a wagon could be just the antidote that’s needed to break the market out of its crossover addiction. Or, at the very least, it’d be great to have Honda inject a bit of quirky fun back into its range. The Wagovan was never as mainstream as the Civic hatchback or Accord sedan. It was, and remains, a fun little machine from a time when every Honda was just a little bit special.