Honda Pakistan & their unique branding for Civic

Atlas Honda started their assembly plant in 1994; since then each model of civic has been given a unique name which isn’t anywhere close to what the world calls those cars.

EG for world Dolphin for us – Honda Civic EG which was the 5^th generation Civic around the globe is commonly known as dolphin civic in Pakistan. No matter who you are but as soon as you hear Dolphin civic you know what car is being discussed.

Its VTi no matter what – 6^th generation Civic was the first one that had the famous VTi variant; now VTi was their top of the line variant with other three as well however the entire 6^th generation Honda Civic is known as VTi in Pakistan no matter which variant it is.

Oriel – 6^th generation Civic also received a facelift where sunroof was introduced and the car was first Pakistani car to have a sunroof; now the facelift model of EK (6 gen of civic) is known as Oriel it doesn’t matter if it has sunroof or not but the car is oriel. Interesting enough for lay man in Pakistan; any car having sunroof is also Oriel now; that’s how strong their branding was.

Prosmatec – in 2001 Honda launched their 7^th generation Ciivc in Pakistan; this car is ES for the world but since this was the first car that came with Progressive, Shift Schedule Management Technology transmission aka Prosmatec that this car became an instant hit with the name of Prosmatec; now Honda has been using the same transmission even today after 13 years of first Prosmatec coming out however the name Prosmatec is associated with the first generation of Prosmatec civic.

Camel – When Toyota launched beige interior in their Corolla E120 it was known as camel interior and everyone wanted that because suddenly grey interior became so out dated… When Honda gave a facelift to their existing Civic ES it was also equipped with the same camel interior and thus the entire range was known as Civic camel interior.

Eagle Eye – 7^th generation Civic received a second face lift where head lights were changed with a little longer headlights with two bulbs on each side and because of the headlights the car was associated as Civic Eagle Eye.

Reborn – 8^th generation is known as FD in the entire world however we in Pakistan know the car as Civic Reborn. Now why would it be called reborn? It was not given second birth; this is only a new generation Civic, when “Reborn” was launched it was a totally new civic; it was bigger and grander and thus Honda marketed the car as Civic Reborn. Now Honda Fanatics hate the fact that FD is called Reborn because they like to call it FD (since the famous RX7 of 1990s also has chassis code FD) however the country continues to know the car as Reborn.

Ninth Generation – Civic FB for the first time is called civic 9^th generation; may be Honda fell short on ideas or may be they changed the marketing head, however I’m “disappointed” that there’s no unique name for 9^th Generation Civic in Pakistan.

Just one guy's opinion

OA