Honda Civic hatch facelift due late this year

The Honda Civic hatchback will be facelifted later this year, arriving about nine months after the updated Civic sedan was launched with important safety equipment additions.

The Civic sedan mid-life facelift has just launched in Australia, and the hatchback version is awaiting its own refresh thanks to that body-style's lifecycle lagging the sedan by about a year when it launched. 

Honda Australia director Stephen Collins confirmed to local media at an event in Sydney this week that the Civic hatchback update will be launched later in the year.

“The Civic hatch is 9-12 months behind the sedan in updates and will be updated this year,” he said.

“The full model change will be a few years away.”

The Civic hatchback is aimed primarily at Europe, and was launched after the Civic sedan was already on sale in Australia, Asia and North America. Not many European markets receive the Civic sedan thanks to the popularity of hatchbacks.

The Civic hatchback's interior will resemble the sedan interior pictured.

The delay to the Civic hatch line-up means that still only two models are equipped with Honda Sensing: the $33,590 VTi-LX and $50,990 Type R hot-hatch. 

The Civic sedan’s recent mid-life upgrade introduced Honda Sensing to cheaper RS and VTi-L models (in addition to the VTi-LX, which already had it). The VTi and VTi-S models in both hatch and sedan bodystyles are set to remain unavailable with Honda Sensing due to a lack of compatibility with the lower-output 1.8-litre petrol engine.

If the Civic sedan is a guide to go off, other updates to the Civic hatchback will include a light styling refresh, new interior trim options, new multimedia and climate control buttons and a new range of wheels, including new 18-inch hoops on the Civic RS. 

The Civic RS hatchback will earn new 18-inch wheels.

Local pricing and specifications will be announced before the updated Civic hatchback’s release later in 2019.

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