Here's the only article I could find about it at Top Gear's site: http://www.topgear.beeb.com/servlet/...Number=08.html

The Honda Accord, good though it always was, has long been perceived as a car for people who worked hard, saved a little for their dotage and who say things like, ‘Aye, well, it’ll see me out.’

I actually had a Honda Accord once, about 12 years ago, and it was terribly good. Comfy, reliable, and all the rest of it. With the then trick 2.2-litre injection engine, it was even quite quick, but still somehow most effective at accelerating the ageing process.

This appears, at last, to have changed. The Accord has emerged from the Shiseido Spa and shiatsu pressure-point massage with Japanese oshiboris hot flannel techniques (rather like the reviewer did at the launch hotel) to a new life. The new Accord – and it is all new – is full of vigour. It’s just a pity that the Zen-inspired ki method didn’t have such a profound effect on your correspondent.

It now looks much more handsome and contemporary, though still sensible enough to be passed on to your parents when you’ve finished with it. I can’t actually remember what the outgoing Accord looked like, so this must be an improvement.

Inside – always a bit of a weak point with bigger Hondas – things are similarly encouraging. It’s still, like the bushido code, a bit severe and not helped by a rather hard and unyielding facia, but it’s cohesive and even quite stylish in a bachelor pad sort of way. Details of note are the electro-luminescent instruments, which appear to float in space inside the binnacle, and the multi-function screen with a mixture of buttons and touch controls. It’s one of the best so far. As usual, it’s all meticulously slotted together.

There will eventually be some diesel Accords, plus a rather stylish estate, but to start with there are saloons with two new i-VTEC petrol engines of two- and 2.4-litre capacity, the two-litre already being familiar from the Stream and CR-V. These are classically free-spinning Honda jobs, but the days when a Honda VTEC engine came into its own at the point where others would have exploded has gone. These are tractable and torquey, so it’s a pity the electronic throttle pedal is so sensitive in the first billimetre [sic] of travel. It really needs a first-pressure position, like the trigger of a Lee-Enfield rifle.

If you could stick your head down the front of these engines and observe a centre-punch mark on the end of the crankshaft, you would discover that, for the first time in Honda car history, they rotate the ‘correct’ way, which is clockwise as you’d be looking at it. This opens up all sorts of opportunities for the maker, such as fitting a five-speed auto gearbox. There are also slick five- and six-speed manuals, depending on which engine you have, and trims including SE, Executive, Sport and, at the other extreme, the 2.4 Type-S.

Once on the move the Accord quickly establishes itself as a really well-sorted car. The ride is a bit hard for my tastes, especially in the sportier guises, and a slight anomaly is that the less sophisticated power steering of the lowly 2.0 SE is the most responsive. But there’s no doubting the work that has gone into damping, body control and rigidity. The ride is what Bentley would call ‘firm but refined’, and they and others could do worse than saw an Accord up to see how it’s done. Noise suppression is also pretty impressive.

The faintly thuggish Type-S ought to be the Accord of choice but I prefer the 2.4 Executive, despite not being one myself, with that new five-speed auto gearbox. Power and spec are actually as the Type-S’s anyway, but you get a slightly easier ride and the relief of executive-style trim in the cabin. The automatic shift is very good and still offers the pedantic the option of manual changing.

Nice car. And, to Honda’s credit, quality and projected residuals are still such that it could feature in any well-planned retirement. It’s traditional, after all, and the population is getting older and packing in work earlier.

At the car’s launch, there was an original series one Accord in the hotel car park, hand-painted in dark blue. It’s owner was clearly hanging in there because the car was looking very weary indeed. But my money is still on the Honda.

I'll see if I can't find that comparison test.