Honda Civic Arab unveiled in GCC market

2012 Honda Civic has been announced for GCC and UAE market. The car is basically what was described in the last post here. 

 More details after the jump.

The car looks evolutionary compared to last one. Dimensionally, the cabin has been stretched a little, with A-pillar shifted forward, while the C-pillar backward. This yields additional 104.7 litres of interior volume. This was achieved, despite some sources claim the car has 30mm shorter wheelbase from the last model, down to 2670mm. There's no details yet on exact body dimension and boot space.

For the interior, the 2-tiered concept of last model is carried over, but with further refinement to it. The interior we see here is basically a Arab spec, with LHD of course.

 There isn't much differentiators from USDM model. The oversized ICE is still there. The RHD version is still uncovered, although it is pretty optimistic to expect a drastically different interior design.

For GCC market, the car comes in three specs. LXi is the cheapest, followed by EXi and VTi. Equipment level varies from model to model which you can see here. I am not going to elaborate much on the specs and trim as Asia version could be entirely different as far as trim and equipment level are concern. However, it is interesting to note the look of the cheapest car, the LXi. While it looks basic, our Civic 1.8S is also a basement spec in JDM book, but with alloy rims  and ICE added on for Malaysian car to justify its pricing. So, the LXi here might be our cheapest model in Malaysia, in terms of look.

The LXi car here lack side mirror indicator, it has smaller tyre+rim combo and the front bumper is plain and bland too.

All specs are paired to 1.8l engine which pretty similar to before. It has 139 bhp at 6500 rpm and 174Nm and 4300 rpm. This engine is paired with 5 speed auto transmission. The better fuel economy was derived from better aero and weight reduction. 

It remain to be seen how the new Civic performs in GCC/UAE market. In US, it got thumbed down in recent  survey by American publication, the Consumer Report. It scored highly on fuel economy but was critisized on its interior quality.

A quick check on previous Civic sold in GCC market shows that they are indeed having the same model like Malaysia market. So we can safely assume that Malaysian Civic is very likely to be a RHD version of the very  car you see here.