Honda won't hatch Civic
BY BYRON MATHIOUDAKIS | 15th Feb 2007
"We are not going to get the English Civic five-door hatchback in its current guise," Honda Australia Senior Director Lindsay Smalley told GoAuto.
A strong English currency against the Australian dollar, and problems meeting demand at the Swindon plant in England – the sole global source for all eighth-generation Civic hatchbacks – are being cited as the main reasons for its non-arrival Down Under.
A lack of a suitably powerful petrol engine and full automatic gearbox combination is another, as the 103kW 1.8-litre i-VTEC unit produces a relatively modest 174Nm of torque, and is mated to Honda’s i-Shift clutchless-manual transmission, similar to Alfa’s Selespeed set-up.
Furthermore, the European Civic hatchback is in fact built off the Jazz light-car platform, and so it is now being considered too small against the latest round of larger small cars, including this year’s all-new Toyota Corolla range.
One Honda insider revealed to GoAuto that a fully loaded British-built Civic i-Shift hatchback could nudge $70,000 by the time it lands in Australia, effectively rendering it unsaleable.
However, this does not necessarily mean that a Civic hatchback will not be offered over the next two years.
According to Honda Australia managing director and CEO Toshio Iwamoto, the three-door Civic Type-R might be released in Australia, as a limited-volume sports hatch.
The Civic Type-R would occupy the same sector that the cult 1999 Integra Type R abandoned in 2001.
More intriguing is the hint of another Honda hatchback in the making.
Speculation is mounting that a low-cost ASEAN region five-door hatchback, to be built in either Japan or Thailand, may surface within the next 12 months.
Based on the current-generation Civic sedan, it will be a larger, lower-cost alternative to the smaller Civic hatchback from Europe, in much the same way that today’s Thai-built Accord VTi/V6 sedan is a cheaper alternative to the smaller and more sophisticated Accord Euro range from Japan.
Mr Iwamoto refused to comment on such a vehicle, but did say that the next-generation Civic hatchback, due from about 2010, may be built in Asia. He also revealed that Honda has a work in progress in its R&D department that might be suitable.
Mr Iwamoto admitted that he desperately wanted to offer a competitor to the Toyota Corolla hatchback.
"We are missing the Civic five-door," he said. "Fifty per cent of the small-car segment is the five-door hatch, and we are missing the product."