Honda has generally been giving rather unconventional styling cues for their cars over the recent years. With the current 10
th generation with the FC designation heading into it’s 5
th year of production, Honda has recently revealed a Civic prototype that is potentially the upcoming 11
th generation Honda Civic. The prototype which was recently unveiled online through the gaming streaming service, Twitch, which kinda shows you what the age demographic that Honda is targeting.
Though despite targeting the younger audience, Honda has decided to get rid of their angry robot styling on the Civic for something more subtle and upmarket. On the front, the prototype has a much more angular bumper as compared to the FC’s. It sorta looks like a
Toyota Camry TRD, in my opinion. Where the previous generation has foglamps fitted, it is now replaced with an air duct with a black surround. The large grille is now taller but wide enough to still maintain an attractive face. I’m looking at you, BMW.
The prototype has definitely taken a subtle approach overall. Gone are those crab claw or '
ketam' tail lamps for a set of European styled lamps. With the car lower to the ground and with the wider track on the rear, the car has a clean but aggressive stance. The upmarket style is definitely something Honda needs in order to be the “hip and trendy” car manufacturer that the younger crowd looks for but has Honda lost their mojo?
While the car does have cleaner lines, it seems that Honda is trying to play safe this time with the Civic. A bit too safe, I reckon. The car has a very generic design. If you told me it was a China-based manufacturer "borrowing" the design from Audi, I’d probably believe you. Now I’m not saying that the Civic Prototype is ugly. In fact, it’s a good-looking car. It’s just rather unimaginative. The only odd quirk about the design that I’m able to find is just the rear quarter window. It seems that the designer had a heavy sneeze while designing that chrome panel.
Back to the Civic, the interior is however unavailable but they did release an artist’s sketch of the interior. Honda has taken a page out of Mazda’s book and gave the prototype a minimalistic dashboard. The instrument cluster weirdly has been opted for a more traditional design speedometer as opposed to the FC’s digital gauge. The infotainment is now a 9-inch unit and good on Honda for not putting the air-conditioning settings in the infotainment screen as they still have traditional knobs. The air vents are also camouflaged into a horizontal bar on the dashboard which is a nice touch.
However, this is still a prototype and the Civic Si, Civic Hatchback and Civic Type R are yet to be revealed nor were we given any specs regarding the powerunit. The Type R should be something we’ll be looking forward to but hopefully Honda do us a favour and do not give the next Type R fake vents that do nothing. What are your thoughts? Has Honda lost their mojo or are they in the right direction?
Written by | Danial Malek
