We’d heard rumblings that Honda had a batch of 2012 Honda Civic sedans shipped to the UAE, but backed off from properly launching the new model due to the supply shortage after the Japanese earthquake. These cars apparently went on sale quietly, and one of our readers snagged these photos of the Civic at one of Honda’s dealerships in Dubai.
The Honda Jazz, a sub-compact hatchback, is the kind of car that should be dominating its segment. And yet, it is the Toyota Yaris and the Nissan Tiida that have a stranglehold on sales, making the Jazz a niche product. For a while, we thought it was the price. Starting at a ridiculous Dhs 63,999 nowadays, and topping out at Dhs 71,999, you could buy a midsize sedan for that kind of dough, let alone a pint-sized runabout. But there was a time many years ago when the Jazz was actually cheap, and even then it wasn’t a familiar sight on Dubai roads.
We weren’t aware that there were any changes planned for the Honda Jazz anytime soon. So when Honda’s Middle East office offered us a test-drive of the 2012 Jazz, we were wondering what had changed. Turns out it is just a facelift.
This phase of the year does not seem to be so good for the island nation of Japan, which recently had gone through one of the worst earthquakes ever in March, and an even worse aftermath with multiple aftershocks and nuclear radiation dangers. The nation that rests on the “ring of fire” in the Pacific is home to a large number of well-known automakers, among them Toyota, Nissan and Honda. The quake which struck the nation has also jolted the automakers as well, causing severe damage to their production rate, losing the potential production of over 500,000 cars since then.
Honda has just launched the facelifted 2012 Jazz in the GCC. There aren’t many changes other than of the cosmetic variety.
This exclusive original video has been a long time coming. We drove the 2010 Honda Civic Type-R a year ago when it was first launched in the UAE. We made this little video, largely due to the efforts of Faisal Khatib, with support from me and Marouf Hussain. Think of it as our very own tribute to Japanese engineering.
Recalls are boring news. They’re in fact so boring that we only cover them once in a while now. The number of recalls per month has actually reduced since the last time we did a rundown, by about 35%. Of course, the general media still chooses to sensationalise some recalls more than others, especially anything to do with Toyota. In the past two months, there have been recalls by Lexus, Land Rover, General Motors, Ford, Honda, Suzuki, Chrysler, Saab and even Mazda, the last of which is a hilarious one.
The “all-new” 2012 Honda Civic has been unveiled, at least in U.S. guise. It remains a good car, but it is not as ground-breaking as the outgoing version was back in 2006, and in fact looks like a facelift rather than a full redesign.
If you didn’t know, Honda has had a minivan in their GCC line-up for years now. It is called the American-built Odyssey, and up until this point, it simply existed rather than do anything fruitful. Honda quietly managed to sell a handful every year to families who wanted something more upscale than the hotel-shuttle Toyota Previa, but it remained rarer than a Ferrari on UAE roads. But now, there is a new model for 2011, and Honda is actually going heavy on the promotion for this one. We took a look at what exactly it is they are so proud of,
The American-built 2011 Honda Odyssey minivan was launched at an event in Dubai. The upmarket minivan is seemingly aimed at big Arab families, and is expected to sell fine in countries such as Saudi Arabia, though not necessarily as abundantly in the UAE.