SANTA BARBARA, Calif.

SINCE 1976, the Honda Accord has been the car for people who don’t want their car to say anything about them. It doesn’t boast or gossip or tell lies. It’s not glamorous, showy or racy. It’s a stalwart car that does everything well except call attention to itself.

The all-new and all-better ninth-generation Accord does nothing to betray that or the car’s enormous, well-established and self-actualized customer base. The 2013 Accord, which goes on sale on Wednesday, is so thoroughly pleasant and capable that its buyers may even be tempted to admit enjoying it — when pressed, and only after explaining that they never think about cars, and after consuming a couple of sensible cocktails. Maybe Manhattans or Old Fashioneds.

The Accord swims in the deepest part of the mainstream where the currents have led virtually every manufacturer to the same midsize sedan formula: front-wheel drive, unibody construction, a wheelbase of about 110 inches, a standard transverse-mounted 4- or 5-cylinder engine displacing about 2.4 or 2.5 liters, a base price hovering around $22,000. In fact, one of the Accord’s most distinctive engineering elements, the double-wishbone front suspension used since the third-generation model of 1986, has been sacrificed on the altar of conventional wisdom in favor of a MacPherson strut system like all of its competitors.

Honda says the struts are simpler and lighter and they now work as well as wishbones. After all, even Porsches and BMWs are using struts, too. As of now, only one Honda retains those once-beloved wishbones — the low-production experimental FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel-cell car.