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18 September 2011

Honda Civic Sedan debuted at Chengdu Auto Show 2011

It is debut again and again for Honda Civic, across many continents and a few permutation of model and variants. Maybe that's how Japanese car maker approach their product marketing, meticulously tuned and customized to specific market preference. What you see here is Honda Civic sedan, previously seen as bland USDM and slightly better looking GCC/UAE version. The China version is slightly different again, and this could point closer clue to how our Malaysian model will looks like, as the taste of these two countries are almost similar.
Two variants were launched at Chengdu for China market, the VTi and Type-S. These two variants are differentiated by engine size. The VTi is powered by 1.8l of R18A variety, with 142hp. The Type-S is powered by new 2.0l that produced 157bhp.

The VTi comes with the option of manual or automatic 5 speed gearbox, while the Type-S is only available in automatic gearbox. The car is promised to have an  improved fuel efficiency, the official quotes are 6.8l/100km for 1.8l engine and 7.4l/100km for the 2.0l lump. Importantly, the choice of engine mirror those available in Malaysia right now, so this could point to our choice of engine too.

The Type-S is marketed as sporty model and it comes with different rims, bumper treatment. The VTi is more conventional with different grille. More details after the jump.
Civic VTi front

Civic VTi side

Civic VTi rear
Civic Type-S front

Civic Type-S front

Civic Type-S rear

Civic Type-S side
The interior sees some different trimming to GCC/UAE model we see some times back. There's an added silver strip on door trim. This lifts the ambiance a bit and it is pretty sure we'll get that too in Malaysian car.
The silver strip on the door trim, behind the door inside handle is unseen before. This could be part of the specification for Asian market.
The el-cheapo gear console remains. None of previous model metallic accents surrounding the gear gates is found. This is far cry from the European model debuted at Frankfurt earlier this week.
The oh-dear jumbo sized button for audio system remains there. Some version (Type-S) maybe was spotted with LCD screen. So probably the integrated ICE is solely this design, while the other option is the LCD on higher-priced variant.

There is no news yet on launch date for Japan, let alone Malaysia. Some people are amazingly still buying current Honda Civic, as if they read no news in internet on the new model that has been launched elsewhere, and should be coming soon to Malaysia.