Review

HONDA is on course to sell 60,000 cars in the UK this year to take a 3% market share. Fleets account for about 60% of the total, and the main thrust behind these sales are the British-built Civic five-door and upper medium Accord four-door models.

Determined to consolidate a sixth consecutive record year, Honda UK has upped its corporate sales team from 12 to 17 and created posts for national and regional contract hire and leasing managers. They can look forward to the autumn launches of a new Swindon-built Accord saloon and US-made Accord Coupe, but one of their first tests is to help find buyers for an allocation of 4,000 Aero deck models - the third derivative to emerge from Wiltshire and the first Honda designed and developed for Europe. Previous Honda estates were built in the States and based on the Accord.

The team has its work cut out, because the new, smaller, Aero deck is positioned between the C-segment Vauxhall Astra, Volkswagen Golf, Peugeot 306, Ford Escort and Citroen Xsara estates and the D-class likes of the Vauxhall Vectra and Ford Mondeo estates in the hope, presumably, of enticing image-conscious user-choosers up or down a few rungs respectively, using as bait Honda's long-standing reputation for reliability, build quality, standard equipment levels and out-of-the-ordinary styling. Limited production will also guarantee healthy resale values.

Five models make up the Aero deck range, with the choice of three petrol engines and three trim levels - LS, ES and VTi. There are no current plans to include Rover's 2.0-litre direct injection turbodiesel which is available in the Civic hatch across Europe.

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