The Civic has been given a much expected mid-life refresh and this is the model that will be introduced in India.
The eight-generation Honda Civic had taken the D-segment market in India by storm with its look and a low-riding stance. But the sales of the car lost its steam as it could not keep up with rivals offering a diesel engine option. But Honda will reintroduce the Civic in India which is in its tenth-generation now and has just been given a facelift. It has been confirmed that this is the model that will be coming to India.
The tenth-generation Honda Civic facelift sits on newly designed alloys which look good. Internationally, however, the Civic can be bought even with 18-inch wheels that come on the ‘Sport’ variant. Other changes to the Civic facelift include a reworked front bumper which is also sharper and gets a splitter like design underneath. The circular fog lamps are surrounded by chrome accents and the front of the car also gets a piano black finish. The rear is unchanged with only a chrome slat running across it.
The changes to the interiors are even more minor as compared to the exterior. In fact, there’s only one noticeable change and that is the new 7-inch touchscreen infotainment system that supports Android Auto and Apple CarPlay for mobile connectivity. The seats continue to be leather wrapped and there are some cubby holes placed around the car for storage purposes.
Although internationally the Honda Civic Sport comes with a 2.0-litre VTEC engine, the sedan that will come to India will be powered by a smaller, 1.8-litre, i-VTEC petrol engine producing 140 HP. A 1.6-litre, i-DTEC diesel engine that produces 120 HP and 300 Nm of peak torque will also be on offer that is currently being manufactured in India for export markets. Transmission duties will be handled by either a 6-speed manual transmission or the recently introduced 9-step CVT automatic gearbox that can jump from one gear to another non-subsequent step to enhance performance and efficiency.
A big update on the Honda Civic facelift are the safety systems that now comes with the Honda Sensing driving assistance suite. This means that instead of an option, the safety suite is now provided as standard on the Civic facelift. There is now a lane keeping assist, collision warning and mitigation system with automatic braking, road departure mitigation with lane departure warning and adaptive cruise control for driver aid and passenger safety. Even though we expect the systems like ABS and ESC to come with the Indian car, it will be wishful to think that the whole of the Honda Sensing safety suite will be on offer.
The launch of the Honda Civic facelift in India will take place in the first half of 2019. The car is expected to be priced around Rs. 20 lakhs with CKD assembly in India. Honda has also planned to launch the new Honda CR-V in India by the end of this year and we can’t wait to get our hands on it.
Honda Civic Facelift
– The car has been unveiled internationally
– It will be introduced in India in the first half of 2019 with a diesel engine
– Gets exterior updates along with a new 7-inch infotainment system and Honda Sensing suite
