2012 Honda Civic has been formally launched at 64th Frankfurt Motorshow by Honda Motor President and CEO. Compared to yesterday news, there's now more information on the powertrain line-up and dimension of the the new car.
I am personally begin to appreciate the beauty of this new car. Despite the critics that is flooding many international car sites right now on the new car styling, I find it more pleasing that the last car. The previous Civic is a bit too avantgarde for me, with its transparent grille, triangulated parts and cutouts, it feels too Gundam-inspired. Perhaps we can lobby Honda Malaysia to bring this car as an additional variant. With 470l of boot space, this is as accomodating as the Civic sedan, as well as Toyota Altis. To prevent competition with CKD Civic Sedan here, perhaps they can import in niche variant only, maybe 2.2l diesel version. What say you?
The new Civic hatchback is 4300mm long, 1700mm wide and 1440mm tall. The wheelbase is 2595mm. Comparing to the old car, it is 45mm longer, 65mm narrower, 20mm lower and 40mm has been chopped from the wheelbase.
The engine line-up for the new Civic is petrol 1.4l (100bhp that return 5.4l/100km), 1.8l (142bhp that return 5.8l/100km) and the revised i-DTEC 2.2l turbo-diesel with 150bhp. The diesel powertrain returned a pocket-friendly 4.2l/100km.
More details and photos after the jump.
The arch around the driver that starts from the door trim towards the centre console is retained from outgoing car. Gone is the flashy space ball gear lever, replaced by more conventional item. Flashy handbrake is gone as well. Some cost cutting is evident surrounding the gear console, similar to Asia/Arab model. The silver-lined around the covered storage space next to the handbrake looks suspiciously cheap too, real inspection need to verify this.
Despite the compact body dimension, clever packaging masked the lack of length. Packaging marvel like torsion beam (that mimic the independent setup), with centrally mounted fuel tank really maximize the usable space in the car.
The Ultra-seat that makes a dramatic dissapearance from our Honda City is still available in the UK Civic. This is real handy, combined with 470l of boot space make it really a practical car. Like I said earlier, this car could eat some sedan when it comes to efficient space utilization!
The boot could be short, but it is very deep. However, if I am not mistaken the outgoing Civic Euro has a 485l of boot space, which 15 litres greater than this one.
Enjoy some more gallery of exterior photos below.
The more I look at the photos, I am getting more and more interested about this car. Please Honda Malaysia, consider bring some of the variant from this Euro model!