He's at it again. The Times' motoring journalist Jeremy Clarkson has ripped into the new Honda Civic, just as North American journalists are slobbering over it like starving dogs with a steak. In Britain, you see, the Civic is the vehicle of choice for old folks.

Jeremy has lots of cutting words for the driving habits of pensioners, in particular their tendency to dodder along at 12 mph. He relates these habits to the speed at which the years pass. "When you're 75 time is hurtling by at such a rate that driving your small car is like plunging through a tear in the space-time continuum. The throttle pedal is a hyperspace button. This is why old people drive so slowly; because 12mph to a pensioner is like 2,000mph to a teenager."

I'm inclined to agree. I live in a retirement town and yes, the old folks here drive at 12 mph. (Actually, I'm one of them but being an unretired automobile journalist, doddering is not my style. I can still manage 30 mph.) Clarkson admits, however, that old people are fitter today. "They want to get down to the local DIY superstore for paint and a gin trap. Some of them even want to keep on touring with their rock'n'roll bands. And that's fine. Except of course that while they may be physically capable of fighting wolves and singing I Can't Get No Satisfaction, there's no getting around the pace-of-life problem when they get into the car."

The new Civic has been described by Clarkson's fellow journalist Andrew Frankel as "arguably the most futuristic car on the road." Jeremy chooses to argue. He describes it as "a perfectly ordinary five-door hatchback that has been fitted with all sorts of funky jewellery." (The hatch is not available here.) He asks if it's futuristic to fit a digital speed readout just below your eyeline or is it just plain common sense? Fortunately for Civic fans Clarkson has some kind words but he does have a point. How can a new Civic be futuristic when it looks so much like an old RSX?