Honda Civic ECO - Japan, Turkey & Italy in one

© HondaAnd to think that some actually believe Japanese cars are ill-suited for LPG conversions...

There are markets (Turkey included) where the sedan is a preferred bodystyle, as it evokes associations with luxurious limousines, thus offering a feeling of elegance and prestige for a fraction of the price. Sadly, this leads to the creation of such awkward vehicles as the Renault Thalia/Symbol, Fiat Siena/Albea or (e.g. in India) a sedan variant of the otherwise good-looking Suzuki Swift, but luckily the three-box version of the Honda Civic looks neat and smart (although the smaller City model doesn't). Anyway, the Civic sedan is the basis for the ECO model, featuring a dedicated, yet fitted right in the original factory LPG system, namely the BRC Sequent Plug & Drive. This is not the first time it's happening, actually...

Honda has been offering Turkish buyers LPG-powered Civic sedans since 2011. Initially, the conversions were done at dealerships, by specially qualified technicians. In 2015 a DOEM (delayed original equipment manufacturer) conversion centre was launched on the premises of Honda's Turkish production facility. 2A Mühendislik, a local distributor of autogas systems and components, is a partner of this initiative. So in fact the newly announced Civic ECO is just the latest incarnation of a previously known car, a car that has earned customers' trust and regard. Honda hopes to maintain high sales levels and reputation of the model.

Just to remind you, Turkey has the largest number of autogas-powered cars in the world, with approx. 4 million vehicles on the road (that's an impressive 27 percent of all cars registered in that country), refueled at 2400 stations across Turkey's vast territory (783 thousand sq. km). The numbers are truly impressive, although much smaller Poland (312 sq. km of land and half the population compared to Turkey) has nearly 3 million cars running on LPG and over 5000 refilling stations. But then again, there's no Honda Civic with a factory-fitted autogas system available in Poland...