Honda unveils new Civic
On this day in 2005 at an auto expo in Geneva Switzerland Honda debuts the Civic Concept a five-door hatchback.The Japan-based automaker launched the first Civic in the early 1970s and the compact affordably priced car went on to become a best-seller in the U.S.auto market.Soichiro Honda founded the Honda Motor Company in 1948 in Hamamatsu Japan located near the village where he was born in 1906.
The son of a blacksmith who also repaired bicycles Honda grew up in humble circumstances and as a teen went to Tokyo to apprentice as an auto mechanic.He later ran his own auto shop and drove race cars before an injury sidelined him.During World War II Honda built engines for the Japanese military.
After the war he and a partner formed the Honda Motor Company which grew into a successful motorcycle manufacturer.In 1957 Honda launched its first car in Japan the N360.(According to The New York Times this decision infuriated the bureaucrats of Japans powerful Ministry of International Trade and Industry who ordered [Honda] to keep making motorcycles because they had drawn up plans for Japan to have only a handful of automakers.) Two years later the company began to sell its motorcycles from a storefront in Los Angelesits first American retail outlet.The Honda Civic went on sale in Japan in the summer of 1973.
The following year the company launched a Civic with a fuel-efficient CVCC (Controlled Cortex Combustion Chamber) engine.Starting with the 1975 model year CivicCVCC cars were available in the U.S.According to the Times The engine used a startling new design one that burned a leaner mix of gasoline and passed emissions teststhe main barrier to the American marketwithout using a catalytic converter.
The Civic along with the Honda Accord (launched in 1976) arrived at a time when Americans who had experienced soaring gas prices as a result of the 1973 Arab oil embargo were looking for an alternative to the large gas-guzzlers rolling off the assembly lines in Detroit.The small fuel-efficient Hondas soon had a foothold in the U.S.auto market.In 1989 Honda started making Civics at a plant in East Liberty Ohio.
Seven years earlier in 1982 Honda had become the first Japanese automaker to build cars in America (using domestic and globally sourced parts) when it began producing Accords in Marysville Ohio.By 1995 a total of 10 million Civics had been produced worldwide.Another milestone in the cars history came in 2001 when Honda introduced a gas-electric hybrid version of the Civic.Soichiro Honda died of liver failure at the age of 84 on August 5 1991.
At the time of the outspoken auto mavericks death the company he founded was Japans third-biggest carmaker after Toyota and Nissan.
