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It is in 'accord' with everything around it if you like, loathe to upset anyone or anything – particularly its driver.

Wood burning stove, Swiss watch and Honda are practically synonymous these days with reliability and that is just what the Accord screams to me – reliable.

Send it on an errand to the shop and your change will be penny perfect, the bread will have a nice long date and the milk will have only recently been extracted from Daisy's udders.

It's not quite the class prefect. It doesn't show off or revel in its ablity to do everyting superbly.

It sits somewhere in the middle of the classroom, neither the trouble-causing cretin nor sycophantic snot-nosed square. It just gets on with things quietly.

And that is why the Accord is so attractive. Its design, while less drab than some of its predecessors, is well turned out. And so it should be. The Accord is something of an elder statesman on our island's roads having been around since the 80s.

That was when it was cool to wear one pink sock and one luminous yellow sock. You daren't stand too close to a smoker for fear of your shell-suit spontaneously combusting and unless your Bermuda shorts had the full complement of roy-g-biv you were considered drab.

All these things have of course faded into the memory, the Accord however continues to evolve and develop as and when it needs to.

The current buzz-word coming out of the Japanese company's PR machine is 'Hondamentalism' but I suspect the kind of person who will buy a Honda Accord would prefer to see 'Hondamentalists' issued with an asbo and curfew order. Mental this is not. In fact, it makes perfect sense.

The 2.0-litre version tested here has been bestowed with an embarrassment of technology.

Pop the alphabet into your mouth and sneeze and you may well come up with HFT, ACC and LKAS – that's without the ABS, EBD, ADAS, VSA and...never mind.

Perhaps the most interesting of these is LKAS – Lane Keep Assist System. Using electronic witchcraft the car monitors your motorway lane position in relation to the road markings and the cars around you and disciplines your road manners as a result. At this rate, Hondas will be driving themselves soon.

Performance from the 2.0-litre petrol is more of the same steady reliability with 60mph coming up in around 9seconds and the smooth five-speed 'box taking you on to 137mph.

Fuel consumption is again solid. The 2.0-litre petrol notching up 38.2mpg.

If you really want to combine sterling performance with miserly fuel figures you should look at the freakishly quiet 2.2-litre CDT-i diesel version. It will return a combined mpg figure in the low 50s while achieving more or less the same 0-60mph dash time. Go figure.

There is one area incongruous with the rest of the Accord and that's the interior. It's a class apart and I loved it.

So tempting it must be for manufacturers these days to go for LCD this, neon that and a button for every little trick in the book. Not so here. The dials are minimalist, the buttons are where they should be and the centre console is reasonably uncluttered.

Upgrade to the EX–ecutive model and you'll get leather, bigger alloys, sunroof, clever headlights, rain-sensing wipers, auto dimming rear-view mirror, voice activated Satnav and hands free telephone (HFT) – all of which you'd rather expect of a BMW, Audi or Mercedes.

You also get bags of room in the back. I was able to flop in through the rear doors without a problem at 6' 2" so it is a proper executive saloon.

It will be interesting to see just how many Ford Mondeo sales it will pinch.