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Matt Brogan13 Feb 2015
NEWS

Civic looks forward to mid-year revival

Honda says it will leave no stone unturned in making Civic competitive, but an all-new model is still 12-18 months away

Honda Australia says it will focus on adding value to its current Civic range as the model struggles to compete with segment leaders. Following the announcement yesterday that Mazda will bolster the value of its strong-selling Mazda3, Honda Australia director Stephen Collins said the importer would look to extending the value of the current model before the end of the financial year.

"Our plan this year will be focussed around limited editions and adding value to that car," explained Collins. "Beyond that we're working on what we can do to resurrect it in the long-term."

Collins stressed that there would be no further price cuts to Civic, emphasising that the "value add" to the current model would instead come from extra features offered with limited edition packages.

"We're not planning price movement, just adding value and refreshing where we can," he stated.

The Civic finished 2014 in tenth place with just 7878 sales. It's a fall of 44.8 per cent on the year prior and a shadow of the numbers achieved by segment leaders such as the aforementioned Mazda3 (43,313 sales) and Toyota Corolla (43,735). But Collins says his team is working hard to ensure the Civic can regain its once-strong position in the Australian small-car market.

"We're working hard on what we need to do to again become a key player in the small car market," Collins emphasised. "We know that Civic awareness is very good, we just need to get it back on the shopping list. That's our challenge. We've done it with Jazz, I think we've done it with Odyssey, [so] there's no reason we can't do it with Civic, and that's the next priority for us."

That priority will see the revised Civic range in showrooms before the end of the financial year.

"Leading up to the peak selling period of April, May, June will be a fine period for us to be as aggressive as we can on Civic," said Collins." It's a hot segment, and there are plenty of good cars in there, so we need to do what we can during that peak selling period."

Although updated in 2011 the current generation Civic is essentially unchanged since its debut here in 2006. It is expected the model will remain on sale for at least 12-18 months, with Collins saying the new model is not expected until at least 2016.

"At this stage we haven't confirmed when that will be, probably sometime next year," he said.

Collins said the all-new tenth-generation Civic would enter as a technology leader in the segment, and would likely arrive with petrol, diesel and hybrid engine options.

"The next-generation Civic will be a leader in technology, a leader in value. It will tick every box," he enthused. "We will leave no stone unturned in making that car seriously competitive."

Excusing the upcoming Civic Type R hot hatch (pictured), there has been little news of Honda's upcoming small car. It's anticipated Honda could present the new model at this year's Tokyo motor show, which will be held from October 25 to November 8.

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Written byMatt Brogan
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