2015 Honda Civic Tourer Facelift Spied Testing

The Civic Tourer is still the newest car offered by Honda in Europe, until the Jazz and HR-V launch. Despite this, a facelift is being developed, bringing the compact estate model in line with other Hondas, especially the regular Civic hatch, which was revealed back in 2012 and will also receive a facelift.

Our spies stationed in Germany have just sent us the first photos of a Civic Tourer facelift. The car is fully camouflaged and has UK number plates, despite being left-hand drive. That's because Honda's production and development facilities in Swindon do most of the work of keeping European customers happy.

Like we said in the beginning of the article, the Civic Tourer is still a brand new car. However, the manufacturer is changing the front grille, the bumper and the headlights to give it a more modern look. Round the back, changes are more subtle, but the graphics of the taillights have been enhanced to make the Tourer more recognizable at night.

Honda never actually planned to make an estate with a Civic badge, but due to customer demand, the Tourer was launched last year. From the nose to the end of the rear doors, it's almost exactly the same car as the regular hatcg, but a bigger boot is added to increase cargo volume. The extra 235mm of total length go towards one of the biggest cargo areas in the class, superior to the Golf and Octavia load carriers.

Another reason why Honda is planning an update of the slow selling Civic is to pump some life into the engine range, which could for the first time include a 1.5-liter petrol turbo with i-VTEC technology.

On the safety side, the Civic Tourer already has plenty of tech on offer thanks to two driver assistance packages that include lane departure, collision warning and automatic cruise control. What could change is the price they're offered for. Honda firmly believes that in order to compete with popular German compacts, it needs to undercut them in terms of price. That's why the Civic Tourer is offered with an adaptive damper system that only targets the rear wheels and is twice as cheap as that of a Golf.

This family-oriented package has just started testing and will not be under this year's Christmas tree. It will take at least until the 2015 Geneva Motor Show in March before we get to see Honda's new estate.

Source;
http://www.autoevolution.com/news/2015-honda-civic-tourer-facelift-spied-testing-84466.html