HONDA is back in the compact-sized estate car market – or C segment in the jargon – after more than a decade with the Honda Civic Tourer.
The new Honda Civic Tourer – an estate car version of the five-door Civic hatchback – is pitching itself head-on against market-dominating rivals such as Ford’s Focus and Vauxhall’s Astra.
A sneak preview in Frankfurt of what Honda will call the Civic Tourer when it goes on sale next February disclosed it as a sleekly-styled, elongated version of the Swindon-built Civic five-door hatchback.
But the strongest selling points of the Honda Civic Tourer will be class-leading internal space and a wide array of innovative storage solutions of the type which have made Honda’s Jazz small hatchback a world-wide success, says Adrian Killham, Honda’s recently-anointed “large project leader” in Europe.
It will also benefit from Honda’s excellent low-emission 1.6 diesel engine, which emits just 94g/km of CO2 in the Civic Hatchback, and will appeal to company car drivers with low benefit in kind company car tax if the bigger car gets close to that figure.
The Tourer is the first such project of its type to be developed by Honda in Europe.
