The Cruze underwent a complete redesign for 2016, and it’s now one of the most attractive cars in its class. It’s sleek, sporty, and modern now but without going too far down that futuristic road. You’ll have the option of a hatch as well as the sedan body style this year. Most of the time, a hatch version looks sportier than a sedan, but that’s not the case here as they’re both extremely attractive.

Guess what? The Honda Civic is now also available as a hatch, which has been added to the sedan and coupe body styles to give buyers quite a bit of choice. The Civic is a good-looking car in all three forms, although this latest redesign isn’t the most radical and it could easily be mistaken for a mid-cycle refresh. A relative lack of imagination on Honda’s part therefore hands this round to the Cruze.

Being longer and wider than many of its rivals translates into plenty of legroom for front and rear-seat passengers, giving the Cruze a good start for comfort and quality. As well as plenty of room, the seats are also impressively bolstered and very comfortable, especially in higher trim levels.

While the Cruze is bigger than many of its rivals in the segment, it’s not significantly bigger than the Civic, which means plenty of room for passengers and cargo inside the Honda. Obviously there are differences between the body styles when it comes to headroom in the rear seats, but on the whole there’s more than enough most of the time.

At the moment it’s a take-it or leave-it situation with the 2017 Chevrolet Cruze as there’s just one engine. The unit in question is a 1.4-liter turbo-four producing 153 horsepower, although sedan models will soon be available with a new turbodiesel and hatches will get it as an option for 2018. The current engine is capable and appropriate and the ride is very good indeed, but a more powerful option for those who want it would be welcomed.

The Civic’s base engine isn’t a turbo, but the 2.0-liter four-cylinder does offer very similar power and performance to the unit in the Cruze. However, the Civic can also be had with a turbo-four that develops as much as 180 horsepower in some variants, so this section has to go to the Honda.

The EPA rates the current 2017 Chevy Cruze at 30 mpg in the city, 40 mpg on the highway, and 34 mpg combined with the automatic transmission. These numbers are pretty good for an engine with none of those fancy eco settings that turn off all the stuff that makes you comfortable and slow you down.

Things are not quite as straightforward with the Honda Civic, though, as things like the 18-inch wheels and body kit on Civic Hatchback Sport models hurt fuel economy and produce different ratings. In its most standard form, though, the 2.0-liter inline-four mated to the six-speed manual transmission is rated at 28 mpg in the city, 40 mpg on the highway and 32 mpg combined. The Chevy’s fuel economy can be beaten by the Honda Civic if you go for the 1.5 turbo, but as the standard engine isn’t as frugal as the Chevy’s we’ll have to give this to the Cruze.