Honda City – 7th Gen Interior, 6th Gen Exterior; What’s The Story?
The current Auto Developing Policy 2016-21 brought in many new players in the market with very high local investment in the sector, which also automatically resulted in a wide range of new products for the consumers. Since mid-2019, with start of KIA local assembly of their model line up, the automobile industry in full swing. We witnessed new products one after another, and it kept consumers on their toes and kept building their excitement. And this time it is Honda City.
Although the new brands and their models’ lineup might be flashy and attractive, there is another long-running model in our market which has always been a point of discussion in a good or bad way, and you can guess it easily,” The Honda City “. Although Civic is the flagship model for Honda Atlas, it is statistically Honda City, running the show and bread and butter for the Honda Atlas Pakistan Limited [HAPL].
A consumer in the market has always been on the lookout whenever there is a slight indication or news about replacing the currently available Honda City. No matter how much the City is criticized, people still talk about it and want to know more about it. The current Honda City model went into production outside Pakistan in 2008 while in Pakistan it got life in 2009, and since then, it is with us, although with multiple back to back minor facelifts.
In contrast to the situation of 5th generation Honda City in Pakistan, Honda Thailand revealed the all-new 7th generation of Honda City in November 2019. The GN1 chassis code / 7th generation went for sale in India and other markets in the first quarter of 2020 and technically made a PK Domestic model City, two generations behind.
Teasers “Sublime, Convenient, Elevated, Pleasure”
The teaser campaign is advertising or more recently, social media tools. As the word suggests, it’s basically used to create suspense, mystery, excitement, and constant audience engagement by providing glimpses and clues of any upcoming product. The teasers are very much established in the automotive industry, and automobile companies use them very effectively before the model’s official launch.
For over a year-long of guessing, anticipation, forecasting, and everyday rumours, Honda Atlas Pakistan at last started a social media teaser campaign for the past several weeks. It is now virtually confirmed that customers in Pakistan will soon welcome a replacement of the 5th generation of Honda City. The TEASER campaign from Atlas, which should have created a lot of buzz & excitement, actually went the other way around & resulted in serious disappointment and even before the model’s launch.
The arrival of a replacement model is a good news because this is not another facelift, like multiple times we experienced in the past with a decade long Honda City. It was not really difficult for the public to guess teasers and understand images labelled with words like Sublime, Pleasure, Convenient and Elevated. The image of the front grill, design of cruise control settings/shape of the door handle and body indent around it, location of Push Button Start and the styling/design of the alloy wheel made consumers only upset and disheartened.
Reason being, all these teasers direct toward a GM6/ 6th generation instead of the 7th/ GN1 generation as enjoyed by customers overseas and yet again introducing a discontinued model from Honda Atlas. This is not an unseen model, as the same generation of City is imported in Pakistan as a secondhand JDM/ Japanese Domestic Model for several years with a hybrid powertrain. The model is known as Honda Grace in Pakistan.
This is the generation that arrived in the overseas market in 2014, got a facelift in 2017 with some exterior and interior updates and discontinued in 2020 and replaced with the 7th generation. While Honda Atlas is trying to tease us with shadow images and keep on doing it until its reveal, a recent social media video clip of a camouflaged vehicle further confirms the upcoming model. We also presented a very detailed article a few weeks ago about the possible feature, options and other expected details.
The New Teaser:
Honda Atlas ongoing teasers on their official website and social media resources were not bringing any excitement or attraction UNTIL this past week, when a fresh teaser was released. This time the teaser from Honda Atlas revealed that the upcoming Honda City would have two frontal airbags. This is a very good news because the current Honda City was never offered with this basic and important safety equipment.
But there was something much more attractive in the teaser image besides airbags; it displayed the interior of a 7th/ GNI1, the current most recent newer generation of Honda City. Keeping the earlier official teasers in mind, the new image automatically put smiles on Honda fans, but also created a lot of confusion. Every other Pakistani Automotive pages shared the photo, and Honda Atlas started getting all the attention, and everyone started questioning; Are we getting the GN1/ 7th generation Honda City?
I did very basic photo sharpness and contrast changes to the teaser image, which revealed some more minor details. Like many auto enthusiasts who keep an eye on everything, this image reminded me of something from November 2019. This picture was part of official Honda press photos from Thailand with the 7th generation Honda City was revealed. It is evident that Honda Atlas’s graphic design and marketing team used an overseas image and pasted two deployed frontal airbags [ image one below ] to portray the safety feature.
Please note the dotted lines in the far background in the enhanced 2nd image and compare it with the 3rd image [ official Honda Thailand phot of the 7th gen] of the vehicle’s interior without any airbags. It is further to note that the official Honda press photo for the 7th generation to depict the safety feature has an entirely different shape and profile of the frontal deployed airbags, the 4th image.
It seems, and it’s all my personal opinion only, that Honda Atlas graphic design and marketing team didn’t realize and used the 7th generation interior picture instead of the 6th generation while creating the airbags safety feature teaser for the upcoming local Honda City. Additionally, I think the message on the teaser should have been “It Protects” instead of “It’s Protected” because airbags protect the occupants, not the vehicle.
I came across another opinion from some people who think that we might get a 6th generation Honda City but with the interior of the 7th generation while steering wheel of the 6th generation because the cruise control teaser is for the 6th generation City.
It has a very low probability that Atlas developed an interior of 7th generation Honda City locally and fix it in the 6th generation Honda City. Technically anything is possible, but it does not make sense to have the interior of the new generation while having the exterior of the discontinued/ previous model. Additionally, any such approach will take a lot of developmental work. It will also be not cost-efficient. We should keep in mind that Honda Atlas products are based on CKD kits, and it is just an assembly line with a very basic R&D facility.
There had been a sound of a word like generation “6.5” heard at certain Honda Dealers regarding the upcoming City. Keep in mind that Honda Atlas earlier teaser of the front grill is for the 6th generation Facelift, and sometimes a mid-cycle facelift is labelled with “POINT 5”. So, the “6th generation mid-cycle facelift” can be called 6.5. There is also no possibility that Honda Atlas will launch both the older and the newer generation at the same time.
Teaser campaign from companies normally does not share all the details, but here we can clearly see an interior of a different generation of Honda City. In brief, the new teaser is in contradiction to the earlier teaser, and although it started a new hyper, it has also created a lot of confusion and uncertainty. It is also concerning that Honda Atlas could not even take/use their own pictures of their own product assembled at their own facility for creating such teasers.
Deceptive Advertising/Marketing?
We already know that Honda Atlas has started taking pre-bookings for the upcoming Honda City on May 17th, 2021. It is to point out that Honda Atlas have not revealed/released any details, specifications and price. No one knows, officially, what model is arriving besides these teaser images. Even dealers have no idea about it, but they are taking bookings for the standard City variant at Rs1-million and the Aspire variants at Rs1.2-million.
Honda Atlas received a lot of backlash on earlier teasers for bringing the older and discontinued generation. It looks like this new teaser is to attract the consumer and confuse them more and basically indirectly asking them to visit the dealership and book and place a deposit for the upcoming an UNKNOWN Honda City. As per some reports, Honda already secured over 7000 in bookings, and for a model, no one has seen yet.
Keeping in mind the earlier teasers and now this new one of 7th generation Honda City interior, one can say it is nothing more than deceptive and false advertising. Use of false and misleading information in any form to capture attention and to influence the consumer is strictly prohibited all across the globe. Trade commissions and consumer protection bureaus have very strict rules about it.
I don’t say Honda Atlas is involved in it intentionally, and this might be just a human error, or should we say that earlier teasers were wrong and the newer teaser is more pertinent and close to reality? In either case, all this situation does not help Honda Atlas and can have further consequences. Honda must bring clarity in their operation and especially when interacting with the consumers.
Final Thought:
I strongly believe and suggest that Honda Atlas Pakistan stop the teaser campaign and officially release the vehicle with all the specifications, options, price, and other details. Consumers have been teased already for long with the decade-old Honda City and will now possibly yet again with another upcoming older & discontinued generation.
For the consumers, I suggest that please don’t hand over your hard-earned money in the hands of anyone asking for “PRE BOOKING” even IF that someone/ anyone is representative/employee of a DEALER and taking booking on company’s name. Don’t book a vehicle that is NOT officially revealed or released by the Car Company [ Honda Atlas in this case ]. Even if a vehicle is released, DON’T book a vehicle until you see it; experience it and test drive it at the dealership.
This can cause an intentional supply-demand gap and result in the same Black-Marketers, Premium mafia, coming into action before the product’s availability to genuine customers. I hope Honda Atlas do all the measures to tackle this serious issue and make sure that genuine consumers are entertained well in time and Honda Atlas ramp up their production, so buyers get their vehicle as soon as possible. This way, GM6, even being an old and discontinued model, can gain some success.
Please Stay Tuned to Pakwheels editorial and social media pages for more updates. Meanwhile you can join Pakwheels 2021 Honda City GM6 Dedicated Discussion, Owner/ Fan Club Thread
Well; it seems like, we might not be able to enjoy the newer generation of City at this time but at least can droll on the images. I hope and wish we see it soon in Pakistan.
