The Honda Civic has forever maintained a rather premium prospect for itself against a rather unruly competing vehicle, the Toyota Corolla.

While one is sporty, the other banks mostly on the fact that its reliability will make sure that you can ford streams and drive through puddles and bumps without causing wear and tear (the high prices of cars does make the driver skeptical of doing that anymore though). That said, I have met quite a few people who went for the Civic just because it wasn’t a Metro Cab.

The ninth generation of the Honda Civic (2012-2017), however, didn’t do much to add to the model's illustrious history. It was widely considered a failure. There was nothing special about the Civic anymore, or so the saying went. Its flair for sportiness was lost in its beige design, and it seemed a horse could boast more features than it could.

Honda knew it had to do something exceptional or be forever lost in the turbulence; and, despite customers’ woes on quality, I personally think it has pulled off a stunner with the 10th generation Civic (2017).

Its success has further been made evident by Honda Atlas itself after it recently announced that it has sold 150,000 units of all Civic variants to-date.

Since a while now, Honda has reported its official production and sales figures of the Civic and City together, so it is not easy to assess their individual sales performance. However, when you compare the sales of the Civic and the City from the period of July-August 2016 (5,295 units) with July-August 2017 (7,766 units), you get the impression that the Civic has been well received when, for the same periods in both years, Toyota has maintained a steady number of around 8,500 units of the Corolla.

Honda can do much better with its City too, if it positions it better as an alternative to the lower-spec range of the Corolla (the Xli and Gli). However, the same model has been kept in Pakistan for more than eight years now, which is a bit too long. This decision has seen the company lose its buyers to Toyota, and the problem is only compounded because the next new model of City will only be introduced locally when Honda introduces a new one globally.

Considering that a minor refresh had given a boost to the City's sales, be sure to expect a larger return for whenever the next City arrives.

It will, however, be interesting to see how and when the company plans for that, since it is already facing supply issues and its factory is running at maximum capacity.