Being a big
weirdo fan of the 8th-gen Civic, I would like to expand upon your sentiments:
It seems like some of my personal favorite cars are the ones I didn't even like at first, such as the eighth-gen Civic back when it was first introduced in '06. To me, they looked too modern and funky; too big of a departure from past Civics. It took until the ninth-gen hit a couple years ago for me to start appreciating these cars. At the time, they were a bit of a risk from Honda, not looking anything like its competitors at the time, most of which falling either into the categories of conservative or lackluster. It's easy to say that these blend in nowadays, but I like to focus on the subtleties. Whereas most cars are starting to look progressively blobbier with each iteration, the Civic sports a crisp look that is still fresh some eight years later.
Just as polarizing as the exterior was at the time, the spacecraft-inspired interior was and still is quite divisive. Having ridden in (but not driven!) one of these, the interior's just as distorting as it is striking in pictures - but not necessarily in a bad way. You sit low in the car, and the dash spans quite a ways in front of you. A long windshield exuberates this effect, making you feel like you're quite far from the edge of the Civic's short hood. It's an odd visual effect, but must be something you acclimate to, seeing as this is not a complaint I've heard from Civic owners. I'm quite a fan of the Civic's unconventional interior styling; like the exterior, it still looks fresh today.
