Honda Australia planning to trial cooking model UK Civic hatch
UK Civic hatch for Oz
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Prepared to spend $35K for a Civic? You'll have to be if you're after the funky five-door Civic hatch
Honda Australia is close to securing supply of a non-Type R hatch model to add to its top-selling Civic line-up. But the bad news is the funky UK-sourced five-door will cost around $35K by the time it arrives loaded with extra equipment over the current sedan models.
Honda Australia says the five-door hatch is now firmly on the agenda. It will be offered as an up-spec Civic, to create pricing room between it and the sedan and hybrid Civic models.
Company boss Lindsay Smalley said at the launch of the Accord Euro in Vienna this week that Honda Australia first approached the UK division for supply of the hatch model almost three years ago.
"Our first step was to bring in Civic Type R; in low volume," says Smalley. "If you look at the small car segment, we currently only compete with the Civic sedan, and the sedan component of that segment is only about 40 per cent of total sales. So we see a hatch variant as a real opportunity for us."
Preventing the company from making moves sooner is the fact sourcing the cars from the UK is more expensive compared to Honda's plants elsewhere (such as Thailand for the Accord and Civic sedan) thanks to increased logistics and shipping costs.
The exchange rate for the Australian dollar versus the British pound sterling is also prohibitive, and no Free Trade Agreement exists to allay duty, which would be added on top of an already strong UK currency. The premium for the European Civic hatch over the sedan could be as much as $5000.
"We also need to consider where an up-spec model would sit within our line-up, without cannibalising other products in the range."
According to Smalley the current (first) generation Accord Euro and the five-door Civic hatch are dimensionally similar, and would also be close on specification and therefore share market or buyer target.
However, the second-generation Accord Euro is larger and more powerful than the outgoing model.
"We now see an entry point for the five-door Civic," says Smalley. "We've spoken to dealers and our next step is to bring a five-door to Australia for market research."
Senior Vice President for Honda Europe, Ken Keir said sales of the UK-built Civic hatch would be beneficial to the company not only from a volume point of view but for the "buzz" and prestige of selling the model in a highly competitive market such as Australia.
"For Honda [UK], it [export to Australia] was a major step forward. I would liken exporting cars to Australia to where we were four years ago, when we first exported Civic three-door back to Japan. That was a big psychological goal," said Keir.
"When Australia came up for the Type R the buzz was fantastic, because we've gone to the 'other side'. It's not the volume but the statement that's important. In the UK, Australia is important; it's emotionally meaningful."
According to Keir and Smalley, "Best case" for local timing on the Civic hatch would be middle of next year; sometime after the "minor" mid-life facelift expected for the model.
The UK-built hatch also uses ISOFIX child seat anchor points which 'fail' ADR approval, furthering delay. Honda Australia says it won't apply for dispensation to have the seat fixtures pass scrutiny for sale.
