TOV: Next Generation Civic *Update*

Over the past few months, we have heard rumors coming out of Japan that the next generation Civic's introduction could possibly be delayed by as much as a year. Now we have heard some stuff coming from sources in the US that seem to support these earlier rumors.

First, I would like to emphasize that what we've heard comes from a source who A) is NOT a Honda associate, B) not in any way affiliated with any of Honda's competitors, and C) has provided reliable information in the past. With that said, this information definitely falls into the unsubstantiated RUMOR category, so take it at face value until we have a better feel for its validity.

The rumors suggest that there has been some internal debate concerning the scope of the 9th generation Civic redesign. This debate has taken place between the American team and their counterparts in Japan, and word has it that the American team wanted to take a significant step forward with the 9th generation Civic while the Japanese team was more interested in making incremental improvements. This difference in opinion is said to have resulted in several redesigns, which have delayed the development. There are prototypes said to be running around doing testing in the USA, but even if a spy were to snag shots of these prototypes, supposedly there is little chance that the finished product will look much like the prototype.

At this point, details are few, but we're hearing that the 9th generation Civic will be dimensionally very close to the current model (Hopefully that means it won't gain any weight). Power is said to be up by 5-8% across the board, with an increase in displacement from 1.8L to 2.0L (R20?) for standard Civics. The Si will reportedly end up with around 210-215hp.

Even if the car were on track for a model year 2011 introduction, with an autumn 2010 introduction (which is still entirely possible), it's pretty early to be hearing these sorts of details, so things are obviously subject to change.

Source;
http://www.vtec.net/news/news-item?news_item_id=853379