Honda city is a car which lives up to its name, it is an excellent urban commuter. Ford has pitched in with their Fiesta; Chevrolet have come out with their Aveo. But, Honda city has still major market share in its segment. The quality that Honda has on offer, it is collecting a huge amount of money as brand value.

Sneak Preview of New Honda City

The New Honda City is totally different in terms of looks and styling in comparison to present city models. New city has more radical styling to give it complete Europen look. Honda designers have taken some design cues from civic especially for the front look. The Rear of new city looks like a mini-ish BMW 3-series with aggresive looking bumper and tail lights.It is expected that Honda will launch the new city in 4 models. Like we have now - the Exi, Gxi, Gxi CVT and top of the line VTEC with all the bells and whistles. It will be launched in Thailand in August and then in India around Diwali in Early November. The estimated price range will be from Rs. 750000 and will go upto 1000000.00 for the VTEC model.

Main Styling Elements of New Honda City:

1) Civic like A-Pillar
2) Turn Indicator Integrated Headlamp Cluster
3) Civic like Rear Pillar
4) Jazz like Interiors Console

Current Generation City

Every aspect of the city styling is very functional, it has short overhangs, both front and back. It has a short roof and a steeply raked bonnet, the angle being followed by the windscreen. Sufficiently big rear window, ample glass area all round and very well designed interiors.The GXI version comes with a single CD in dash Alpine MP3 player and 4 speakers as standard and with beige interiors that are very impressive, even more so is the steering wheel which is now height adjustable and comes clad in leather with prominent chrome Honda 'H' at its helm.

The wood panels along the doors also match very well with the overall make up of the car. The front seats are 3 way adjustable, height included. The power mirrors are extremely helpful and neatly designed, the beige interior stretches all the way to the floor, and is very pleasing to the eye. The top of the dashboard is black; hence no reflections off the dashboard on the glass, even on sunny days. The 3 dome meter console is beautiful, especially at night when the dials are orange and the needle is red.

It is powered by a 1497cc 4 cylinder naturally aspirated petrol, with muti-port electronically controlled fuel injection and iDSI (intelligent dual spark sequential ignition). It is mated to a 5 speed synchromesh manual gearbox. This engine develops 77ps of power at 5000 rpm and 12.8kg-m of torque at as low as 2700rpm. The engine has been designed keeping in mind tough city conditions, where speeds hardly climb above 60kph.

The city comes with 175/65 R14 tires mounted on 14x5 1/2JJ steel wheels. Bumps and humps are absorbed with a neat thud, letting you know that you went over it but not letting you feel it. Ride is quite nice even at very low speeds and gets better in the 40 to 60kph range. On safety front, now city comes with dual airbags and ABS which was the only drawback in earlier models. Overall, City is the best sedan in its class with loads of features at very reasonable price. And it is expected that the new model will be more reliable and improved. Watch this space....

Commercial of Current Gen Honda City ZX: