The Honda Jade is the Civic Wagon You’ve Always Wanted (Not for North America)

At the Shanghai Auto Show Honda unveiled a Jade MPV, thinking it was an ugly looking concept (it was snot green, after all) I passed it by. Never judge a book by its appearances apparently as the Honda Jade is now running down Dongfeng-Honda’s production lines, it uses the platform from the Honda Civic as well as the Civic’s drive train, furthermore it has six seats.

The Jade is up against the Mazda 5, another six seater MPV which seats its occupants in rows of three and has sliding doors and is obviously aimed at home users whilst the bigger Honda Oddysey will be aimed at those business users. Pricing hasn’t been announced but it is thought the base model will be from around 150,000RMB and rising, possibly to as high as 220,000RMB for the top spec model. Oddly base models come with a 5 speed auto as used elsewhere in the Honda line up but the top spec models use CVT gearboxes.

As a dad that is currently looking at new seven seat vehicles for a 2014 purchase I cant bring myself to sit in any MPV’s from the likes of Ford or Kia, they all just seem too ‘white collar, mid 30′s, growing a beer belly‘, but this Jade seems like its a mixture of wagon and people hauler, plus its Civic based so it probably drives half decently. Guess I’ll have to give this a real look at early next year!
Pictures from autohome.com.cn

Source;
http://www.chinacartimes.com/2013/07/the-honda-jade-is-the-civic-wagon-youve-always-wanted/