Honda Civic bookings officially open, launch on 7th March

Honda Cars India has officially thrown open bookings for its latest car – the all-new Civic sedan. Honda dealers have  been unofficially taking bookings for the car over the past few weeks. Now though, they will be able to do so  officially, with the booking amount pegged at Rs. 31,000. The all-new Honda Civic will be launched in India on the  7th of March, 2019, nearly half a decade after the 8th generation model went out of production in India.

Talking about the Honda Civic, Mr. Rajesh Goel, Sr Vice President & Director, Marketing & Sales, Honda Cars India  Ltd. said,

Civic is an iconic brand with a rich legacy of 10 generations and is currently our largest selling model globally.  We are extremely excited to bring the latest 10th Generation All New Civic to the Indian market.

The Civic has skipped a full generation, and the latest version that will be sold here is the 10th generation model.  It has even received a mid life facelift, which means that India will now get the newest version of the Civic that’s  on sale in other parts of the world. Media drives of the Civic sedan are currently on, and actual reviews of the India-spec car will start rolling out in the next few months.

The all-new Honda Civic sold in India will be offered with 2 engines. While the 1.8 liter i-VTEC petrol motor is a  tried and tested unit that was also on offer in the 8th generation Civic, the new model will introduce a diesel motor  for the first time. The diesel engine in question is the 1.6 liter i-DTEC turbocharged unit that’s also offered on  the CR-V SUV. This motor gets a 118 Bhp-300 Nm state of tune, and is paired to a 6 speed manual gearbox that drives the front wheels.

The petrol engine of the Civic is a 1.8 liter i-VTEC unit with 138 Bhp-174 Nm on tap. The petrol engine will be  offered with a single gearbox option – a CVT automatic – considering the fact that luxury car buyers are fast moving  away from manual gearboxes. Prices of the new Honda Civic are likely to start from Rs. 16 lakhs, and the car will be  positioned as a logical upgrade for existing Honda City owners. The Civic will be assembled in India through the  completely knocked down (CKD) kit route.

It will compete with the likes of the Toyota Corolla, Skoda Octavia and Hyundai Elantra, in the D-Segment sedan  space. It’s likely to command ‘premium pricing’, like most Honda cars sold in India. As for design, the all-new Civic  gets a coupe-ish profile, which India first got to see on a Honda car in the form of the second generation Amaze. The Civic’s front end and the profile shows a marked similarity to those of the Honda Amaze. However, it’s unmistakable that the Civic is the larger, and more premium of the two.