Despite playing in a shrinking segment brought about by the unrelenting assault from SUVs and growing B-segment alternatives, the tenth-gen Honda Civic has enjoyed reasonable sales success. The FC sedan remains a good volume seller in the United States, and closer to home, has led the way in the C-segment arena since it appeared.
Unfortunately, things aren’t as rosy in other places, especially in Japan, where the Civic first emerged as a compact hatch back in 1972. Word is that Honda has decided to pull the plug on the sedan form of the nameplate in its domestic market.
The reason behind this is due to poor demand, as Automotive News reports. Just 1,619 units of the sedan were sold in its home market last year, compared to around a quarter of a million N-Box kei cars. The maths mean that time is being called on the FC sedan, and local production at the automaker’s Yorii plant in Saitama will also come to an end.
It’s not the end of the road for the Civic in Japan – the five-door hatchback and the Type R will continue to be sold as imports, until the end of their life-cycle. That may come sooner than later, given that the hatchback is built at the automaker’s Swindon plant in the UK, which is set to shutter next year.
The decision to end Civic sales in Japan marks the second time in the past decade that the model is being removed from the local line-up. The first was in 2010, before the tenth-gen eventually returned it to the fold. It’s likely that the Civic nameplate will continue on to another generation, but questions remain on where it will be built.
GALLERY: 2020 Honda Civic 1.5 TC-P facelift, Malaysian spec
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Come build in Mesia then export back to Japan.
98% Japanese buy Toyota cars and very hardly see Honda, Madza or Nissan car on Japan roads..
Only in Boleh land, all like low entry level turbo and lousy quality automotive cars..
Phew…End of ketam rear-light car.
I hope I won’t be seeing any iteration in the form of udang, sotong, siput, kerang, bawal, tengiri, bilis-like in the future Civic.
See!! In Japan Honda cars are not very popular.. Perhaps the kei car N box.. But that’s it.
The only popular is Toyota.
C segment are traditionally not popular in Japan due to high taxation on that size of car and restrictive parking lot requirement. Kei cars are more popular and really 50-60% there are Kei cars or Kei MPVs.
Yep it’s either u go Kei or or you go big n get a C class or 3 series if you plan to get something that big in Japan.
Meanwhile in Malaysia, some ppl are treating it as a luxury car while some treating it as a sports car.
Honestly, this Civic ain’t that good looking in my opinion no matter how you mod it. However, the hatchback Type R is nice due to the side and back proportions.
Misleading headline….it will continue to be sold as imports. Just local production will end
the civic sedan will continue to be sold in other countries. the civic has been the household name for the middle and upper middle class family.
Even Jepunis rejected their own car for COTY winner Volvo XC40. Hahahahahahaha!!!!
different market these days, most japanese use public transport for work, compared to the 80s where budget sedans still sold well. most of these families instead have really small kei cars for convenience or have weekend cars (mx-5, toyota 86) instead.
Illogical. For a market that sold 5.2mil cars last year, 1,619 units of the sedan sold is near 0 percentage figures. It isn’t the market has changed but Honda didn’t do well in Japan.