Honda whips out retooled Civic

The new Honda Civic is displayed at the Los Angeles Auto Show on Thursday. The show opens to the public today.

The new Honda Civic is displayed at the Los Angeles Auto Show on Thursday. The show opens to the public today.

Friday, November 30, 2012

— In the quickest turnaround in the 39-year history of the Civic, Honda Motor Co. is introducing a modified U.S. model, just 19 months after the current car appeared.

The rapid redo is central to the company’s bid to keep the top-selling U.S. small car ahead of Hyundai Motor Co. and Ford Motor Co. compacts. It’s also seen as a chance for Honda to address flaws cited in withering reviews and extend a sales rally in the company’s biggest market.

“I can’t think of an example where a refresh was done this quickly and this dramatically with a mass-produced vehicle,” said Jesse Toprak, industry analyst for TrueCar.com, a vehicle pricing and data website in Santa Monica, Calif. The 2012 version was “safe, dull and rather disappointing,” he said.

The car was seen as such a disappointment that Consumer Reports, which frequently praises Honda models, declined to award the 2012 Civic the magazine’s coveted recommended status, citing shortcomings in the car’s agility, interior materials and cabin noise.

Honda executives are looking to the new Civic as the quickest way to put such moments in the company’s past. The 2013 Civic makes its public debut at the Los Angeles Auto Show today with restyled front- and rear-ends, new safety features and a modified in- terior to make the car “more upscale and premium,” Honda said this month.

If the revamped Civic proves successful, it will help propel Honda’s fortunes, which are already improving. The company has set record sales this year for its compact CR-V sport utility vehicle, and introduced a new version of its popular Accord, putting the Tokyo-based automaker on track to increase U.S. deliveries about 25 percent this year.

That’s compared with a 6.8 percent drop in 2011, a year marred by Japan’s earthquake and tsunami and disappointing reviews for the Civic, including one critique in which reviewer Tony Swan of Car & Driver magazine suggested the company had lost its “mojo.”

Honda and other automakers typically redesign models once every five to six years, with a “mid-cycle” refresh happening after three years.

“The loyal Civic buyers still bought it, but it didn’t attract conquest buyers,” Toprak said. “Conquesting buyers from other brands, that’s where making a change like this has an impact.”

Civic deliveries still surged 39 percent this year through October to 254,716 units, as the small car recovered from a dismal 2011. That puts it ahead of Toyota Motor Corp.’s Corolla, as well as Ford’s Focus and Hyundai’s Elantra.

Honda moved to revamp Civic faster than normal because customers expected more from the car, said U.S. Executive Vice President John Mendel.

“There was a bit of a mismatch between expectations for us and where the market had moved,” Mendel said this month in an interview at the company’s U.S. headquarters in Torrance, Calif. “Customers had a higher expectation for us.”

Civic, Accord and CR-V accounted for 73 percent of Honda-brand U.S. sales and 65 percent of total company U.S. deliveries this year through October. Accord is second only to Toyota’s Camry this year among passenger cars and CRV is the best-selling U.S. sport utility vehicle.

Business, Pages 29 on 11/30/2012