Honda Civic 2010 News

DANIEL Ricciardo scored the biggest victory yet in his career when he won the Renault 3.5 supporting race at the Monaco Grand Prix. The Perth youngster qualified on pole and beat home the series leader, Russian Mikhail Aleshin, to also move into second place on the points table.CAM McConville starred in his first serious hit-out since retiring from full-time racing in the V8 Supercar championship, dominating the Fujitsu Championship round at Winton last weekend. McConville -- who took his only "main game'' win at Winton - scored two wins and a second to take maximum points ahead of Steve Owen and Nick Percat, as he used the weekend to warm up for endurance co-driving work with the Holden Racing Team at Phillip Island and Bathurst.GLENN Seton is back for Bathurst in October, joining the Kelly Racing driver roster of Jason Bargwanna, Todd and Rick Kelly, for the V8 Supercar endurance events. Seton, now 45, will be making his 26th start at Mount Panorama and is still searching for his first win, with his final co-driver at Mount Panorama yet to be confirmed.JACK Perkins will join Tim Slade in his Falcon for Phillip Island and Bathurst. The two youngsters are great mates and will drive a car in the Stone Brothers Racing stable.SIMON and Sue Evans took top points at Coffs Harbour in the latest round of the Australian Rally Championship, benefiting as Scott Pedder -who won the first of two heats in his Mitsubishi Lancer - rolled late on the second day, in a similar mishap to the factory-backed Honda Civic of Eli Evans.ASH Walsh used a pair of wins to take round honours in the Australian Formula Ford championship at Winton, though a slow start to the season means he is still only third in points, behind Chaz Mostert and Nick Foster. Mostert won the other race and Liam Sager took the hard charger award.GRANT Johnson and Andrew Fisher finished first and second in the V8 Utes round at Winton and hold the same positions in the championship pointscore. Johnson, from Perth, won two races, with the third going to Gary Baxter of Adelaide.SIR Jack Brabham is already confirmed as special guest at the Christmas party for 20 Victoria car clubs that will be held at the Powerhouse in Albert Park on November 27. The three-time world champion follows previous guests Harry Firth, Jim Richards and Larry Perkins at the annual event, which is backed by Shannons.

Mazda was the first to move, cutting prices by $930 to $2000 in October, and now Honda has joined the push with savings of $1500 to $3000.  Cars to take a cut include the go-fast Civic Type R, Accord Euro and Odyssey.The bad news for Honda buyers is that models built in Thailand - the CR-V, Accord, Civic and Jazz - hold the price line because of a free- trade agreement.  Even so, Honda has found space to trim the sticker of the Thai-built City four-door, which now has a starting price of $19,490.The new Honda pricelist comes into effect on today.

Honda has pumped up the Insight as an affordable and frugal family car — and it looks like the major markets agree.It hasn't yet been on sale for a month in the UK and it has already outsold the Toyota Prius — 229 sales to 198 — while in the US, Japan and Europe it has a waiting list. Honda UK sold 79 Civic Hybrids in the same three-week period.Good news for Honda but it means supply can't match demand in its prime markets so Australia may have to wait.Honda Australia spokesperson Melissa Cross says "there's no timetable"."It will be launched in 2010 but we can't tell you if it's in the first or second half," she said.The Insight is cheaper than the Civic Hybrid with which it will share the Honda showrooms. Later, the CR-Z coupe will join the pair.Part of the success of the Insight in the UK is the government's pro-active 15 per cent annual road tax reduction.On top of its unofficial US fuel consumption of 5.2 litres/100km, it has a high forecast residual rate of 44 per cent and is exempt from London's Congestion Charge.Honda has indicated the US economy may be incorrect, stating that it will match the Civic Hybrid at 4.6 l/100km.Like the Civic version, the Insight has a 1.3-litre, four-cylinder engine mated to an electric motor to work together.Honda's system in the Insight is a smaller, lighter, more powerful yet more frugal version of the Civic Hybrid powertrain.Helping the fuel economy is the Insight's lightweight body that, with a drag coefficient of 0.28, is one of the most aerodynamic cars on the roads.The battery is 31 per cent smaller and 35 per cent lighter than the unit in the Civic Hybrid.Honda expects to sell about 7000 Insights in the UK this year.The annual global sales target is about 200,000 units.

In a time of seismic change in the car industry, Honda has decided its refreshed Civic will soldier on with a light makeover. But Honda Australia is keen to push the refreshed Civic's hybrid credentials, spokesman Mark Higgins saying the current Civic hybrid has turned into the quiet achiever, with sales up 20 per cent this year. It has sold 603 so far this year, up from 501 last year and interest has increased in direct correlation to the rise in fuel prices. “In June we actually outsold the Toyota Prius in the private sector for the first time,” he says. “Toyota has done a great job of promoting hybrids, like we have, but most of their sales are to fleets rather than private buyers. “Our sales are mostly to private buyers.” Higgins says a positive in the Civic hybrid's favour was that it looked like the normal petrol sedan. “The critical thing is that our car looks like a normal Civic and drives like the normal sedan.” He says local dealers have been constrained by a lack of hybrid supply, he says. “The bottom line is that if we could get more we could sell more,” he says. “But in the past six to nine months there has been a huge demand for that car in America and they're taking most of the production now.” The upgraded Civic sedan will arrive in local showrooms early next year, sporting mild visual changes and the same 1.8-litre and 2.0-litre petrol engines as well as the 1.3-litre hybrid four-cylinder available now. The biggest improvement is expected to be the fitting of electronic stability control — Honda calls it vehicle stability assist — as standard. However, Higgins says final specifications are yet to be determined. “VSA is already standard on the Civic Sport,” he says. “We're hoping to introduce it across the range, but that is yet to be confirmed.” The Civic is a key car in Honda Australia's line-up and has benefited from a swing to smaller economical four-cylinder cars. Demand this year is up 15 per cent and the range is responsible for a third of total Honda sales. Honda's other ace up its sleeve is the natural gas Civic, which is selling in record numbers in the US but is unlikely for Australia. “It drives and rides just like a normal Civic,” Higgins says. “And it's the cleanest internal combustion engine in the world.”  

The explosive Civic Type R, which is a hit in Europe and has a completely different look to the familiar Civic sedan, will land here in about June. But that does not mean the rest of the Civic hatch range will come here, according to Honda spokesman Mark Higgins. “We have to have a business case for bringing the (standard) hatch here,” Higgins says. “It’s made in Britain which makes it a different proposition price-wise from the sedan, which comes from Thailand. It would have to be more expensive (than the sedan) and we have to be mindful of it being competitive in the segment. “But the Type R is something a bit different. It’s a high performance model that sells at a premium so it makes a different case. All its competitors are special cars and many come from Europe. But we still intend to bring it here at a very competitive price.” The three-door Type R hatchback is powered by a 2.0-litre with 148kW at 7800 revs paired with a six-speed manual transmission. Pricing won’t be announced until mid-year.

"Of course we would love to be able to get it, but it is early days," says Honda Australia spokesman Gareth Rees. "We have to make a business case for the car and that will most likely happen over the next six months or so. "One of the unknowns is how much the car will cost. It will be the first Type R car to be built in Europe rather than Japan and that could make it simply too expensive." Based on the Civic Type R concept unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in March and confirmed for production just last week, the three-door Type R will be built alongside the five-door hatch at Honda's Swindon plant. It will be displayed for the first time at next week's Paris Motor Show. The Type R will be powered by a free-spinning i-VTEC DOHC 2.0-litre inline four-cylinder putting out 150kW of power. Honda claims the new Type R will put the sprint to 100km/h behind in 6.6 seconds and on to a top speed of about 235km/h. The car is also claimed to be more refined and flexible and offers a stiffer chassis than the outgoing Type R. It will have a suspension package and steering system unique in the Civic range. The Type R will feature many of the bodykit features from the original concept car with a deep front spoiler, larger air intake, triangular fog-lights and a black honeycomb mesh grille.

But picking up the keys for my new car, little did I know that within days I would be $333 out of pocket. And that's not counting the cost of my humiliation. The exorbitant fee was not a hire cost. Nor was it the cost of petrol or any other hidden costs. It was the price of my mistake that saw me reluctantly handing over my credit card to unsympathetic Adelaide City Council bureaucrats. It all started two days after one of The Advertiser motoring writers handed me the keys, telling me to enjoy my new wheels. Pulling up in an on-street car park, I was impressed at how smoothly the Civic glided into place. Never before had parallel parking been so easy. Returning two hours later, I was a little bemused to not recognise my car anywhere. Don't panic, I thought. These new cars all look the same. And for some reason, many of the cars in the street had Victorian numberplates like mine. Clinging to hope, I walked along the line of parked cars pressing the alarm button on my key waiting to see those familiar flashing lights. But there was no flashing. My bemusement quickly turned to panic. "It's been stolen," I cried to my equally panicked companion. "I can't believe it. I'm sure I parked it right here," I said, pointing to a vacant space. It was now his turn to look bemused. "Um, that's in front of a garage roller door," he said. That's how I ended up in the council offices the next morning – paying the costs of my car being towed from the front of a serviced apartment block's roller door and stored overnight, plus a $48 parking ticket. But even in my short time with this stylish vehicle, I learned there were many things to love. For a so-called "small sedan", this baby has plenty of room to move and a large boot which means adequate space for all those shopping bags. And for a girl whose usual mode of transport is a 1.2-litre two-door hatch, I loved the grunt of this 1.8-litre "beast". One touch of the accelerator and off you zoom. The interior light that automatically turns on when you turn the engine off is a nice little touch. It fades out when you shut the door. There really wasn't much not to like. Only a couple of little nitpicks – the dash gear display and tacho were partially obstructed by the steering wheel, at least from my position, and the handbrake got a bit in the way of the gear shift. So, towing ordeals aside, this beauty surpassed my expectations and was a pleasure to drive – from what I can remember of our few hours together. LOVE IT LEAVE IT Honda Civic VTi Auto Price: $22,990 LOVE IT The power. The roominess cleverly combined with a sleek design. Electric seat adjustment. Automatic interior light. Digital speed display. LEAVE IT With the seat adjusted, I found it hard to see the front left-hand side of the car. Dash gear display and tacho partially blocked by the steering wheel. Handbrake a bit in the way of gear shift.