At last! We thought. Something we should be really good at because we know the real thing inside out. What is it? Feral Interactive’s ToCA (Touring car) based on Honda’s latest Civic.

Yes, we know how sad we are driving a Civic. After many extended test runs and fun with the Type-R, we plumped for the diesel-engine version. It means we can keep our spinal cords from crumbling from the Type-R’s suspension and keep our hearing from impairment by the screaming VTEC—which is actually quite gutless at low revs until the twiddly valves do their twiddling—and get a better all-around drive.

This is the Garrison Keillor, fluffy-bunny turbodiesel from the TV ad. Don’t be misled; acceleration is faster than a 1970s Ferrari. Honda has created nearly a pocket rocket, so be careful at the traffic lights Grand Prix—in case granny and granddad embarrass your car.

When we tried the simulation, it was as similar to the real thing as corporate IT buying decisions are to intelligence. You think there is sense somewhere until IT dishes out Microsoft’s latest version of Office instead of using any of the free alternatives. In the case of the simulation, the car has no brakes and accelerates at the speed of a half-squashed slug. Nothing at all like the real thing. Yet some simulations can, apparently, be good enough for serious work. X-Plane, for example, is so authentic that the Federal Aviation Administration counts it as real flight time.