A new global ‘strip-frame’ platform is the secret behind Honda Motor putting the next generation Civic hatchback into production in its UK factory in Swindon for worldwide sale, just-auto has learned.
The new platform, which the company hasn’t talked in detail in public before, is designed for faster assembly and maximum parts commonality between the three main global markets it will be sold in — Europe, North America and Japan.
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As a result, the individual parts count, engineering and logistics costs are reduced which has made the GBP200m investment case for the cheaper Civic to replace the more expensive CRV at Swindon.
As a result, Swindon will become the global source of all five-door Civic production, exporting to Europe, North America and the rest of the world.
“We have a different method of putting the new Civic together because we are standardising models across the world, said Jim Harris, purchasing boss at Honda UK Manufacturing.
“It’s the number of welds and the parts commonality,” he added.
just-auto understands that engineers at Swindon have worked with global suppliers – one significant company in particular – to increase parts volumes on the main components which has significantly reduced the cost of manufacture.
More details on the new ‘strip frame’ platform are likely to be revealed towards the end of the year.
So far Honda has only referred to it as ‘an all-new, more rigid and lightweight platform’, in a speech at the New York show reveal of a five-door Civic ‘concept’ by John Mendel, an American Honda executive vice-president.
At Swindon, the Civic will replace both the CRV and Jazz [Fit], allowing Honda to concentrate the plant on a single model with planned volume of 120,000 a year. Global exports, including a resumption of hatchback shipments to the US [three-door models were sold there for model years 2002-2005 – ed], start in 2017. Currently Swindon makes a similar number of cars [most recently 114,000 a year] but spread across three models.
