The All-New Honda City: Makings of a Winner

The Honda City isn't a new name in the sedan space. The City is actually older than we Nepalese and Indian customers presume. The City nameplate has been in production since 1981, during which the City was a 3-door hatchback originally made for the Japanese, European and Australasian markets. The 3-door City was then retired in 1994 after the second generation.The nameplate was revived in 1996 for use on a series of subcompact four-door sedans aimed primarily at developing markets, first mainly sold in Asia outside Japan but later also in Latin America and Australia. Likewise, Honda City has been in Nepal for a very long time. Keen eyes of an automotive enthusiast will still be able to spot the 3rd generation City which thrive in their rarity. The rarity then changed into abundance from the 4th gen and onwards when the City started flowing steadily into the cities.And now, we have this, the all-new 5th generation Honda City, first unveiled in Thailand in November 2019. It sure has taken a good while for this new City to make its way into Nepal. But we finally get to drive it around... our city to see if this all-new Honda City was worth the wait.Fun Fact: If you remember the City from 1981 then this latest City we have here is not the 5th generation, it's the 7th Gen City. But we'll stick to the 5th nomenclature to avoid any confusion from here on out.Would you look at her...We'll say it right away, the 5th generation city is one of the best-looking Cities. The years of improvement in design have clearly borne fruit. It's one of those cars that you tend to spend a lot of time looking at even when it’s parked in your garage. The new City gets a proper 3-box silhouette with a long bonnet and a proportionately designed boot.Upfront, you get a bold fascia that consists of segment-first full-LED headlamps that have 6 LEDs for low beam and 3 LEDs for high beam, and the Honda logo placed under a thick chrome banding that is an instant attention grabber. Over on the side, the City has the impeccable shape of a sedan. That’s right, a sedan, not a hatchback with a tail sticking out but a sedan. The profile is striking to look at thanks to tires that look proportionate and 16-inch alloy wheels that look handsome.The smart design language is carried out on the rear with a decently sculpted bumper that goes very well with the overall design of the car. You also get Z- shaped wrap-around LED Taillamps and a shark fin antenna. The all-LED head and tail lamps of the Honda City are some of the best-looking lights we have seen in a long time. The new City is the longest and widest sedan in the segment with a length of 4,549 mm and a width of 1,748 mm. However, at 2,600 mm, the wheelbase is still the same as that of the outgoing model.Overall, the new Honda City is one of the best exterior packages that manages to appeal to almost all demographics.Let's take a look at the inside.If the exterior is one of the best, the interior of this City is THE best of the nameplate. It gets a completely new dashboard layout with a black and beige dual-tone treatment that assures a spacious and comfortable cabin.Honda calls this concept of interior design ‘Ambitious Beauty’. It also offers advanced equipment such as 20.3 cm Advanced Touchscreen Display Audio, Seamless Smartphone Connectivity with Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, and Weblink among others. The cabin feels premium thanks to the generous use of leather. There is leather on the dash, leather on the seats, leather on the steering wheel, gear knob, and door pads.The driver's seat comes with a load of adjustments and finding the perfect driving position is easy. There are large windows that open all the way and with the added electric sunroof the cabin stays lit and airy at all times. Space for rear passengers is plenty as well, the hump in the middle is non-existent so fitting 3 in the back for a long journey is easy. The rear passengers also get a manual sunblind for the rear windshield that should save you from getting tanned on long sunny road trips.The boot space of 506 liters should also be plenty to haul a weekend's worth of luggage of all passengers. The fuel tank rated at 40 liters is, however, a little short of what we would have wanted.Under the hood.The 5th Generation model is powered by an all-new naturally-aspirated 1.5L i-VTEC DOHC engine with VTC in Petrol that comes paired to a 6-speed manual transmission or a CVT that makes 121 bhp of peak power and 145 Nm of torque. The BS6-compliant engine offers power-packed performance and excellent fuel efficiency.The first thing you will immediately notice is the sound of the engine or lack thereof. This engine is silent to a point where it feels almost electric inside the cabin during stand-by. Only when you really hit the throttle do you feel that there is an internal combustion engine in there somewhere. This is a very well-behaved engine, there are no sudden jerks or surge of speed that s the driver. The car builds power in a linear manner and hands you all the control. Triple digits come quickly and without a second thought, you will be nipping traffic on the highways.The steering is spot-on, the precision of the light steering makes the car fun to maneuver inside urban streets. Ride quality is cushy too, the suspension soaks all the bumps with ease, and although one has to be careful while driving a sedan through a bad patch of the road the City comes with just enough ground clearance to pull through.The steering also weighs up nicely for confident driving on highways. Another big confidence booster are the brakes; we would have loved to see discs on all four tires but the front discs on the City possess plenty of stopping power. Knowing you can stop on a dime motivates you to drive even harder and the City did just that providing even more fun and adrenaline as a reward.All this power needs to be backed up by a safety net and the Honda City has you covered here as well. The newly designed platform with enhanced lightweight, high rigidity, and collision safety structure offers advanced safety, equivalent to ASEAN N-CAP 5-star rating.To ensure further safety of the occupants, it comes equipped with 6 airbags, vehicle stability assists, ABS with EBD, 17.7 cm HD full-color TFT meter with G-meter, LaneWatch camera, Vehicle Stability Assist (VSA) with Agile Handling Assist (AHA), hill-start assist, and 3-point seatbelts for all 5 seats with pre-tensioner and load limiter, and many more.VerdictThe all-new Honda City starts at Rs 54.25 Lakh and goes all the way up to Rs 70.60 Lakh. This is a justifiable sum for a sedan that ticks all the right boxes. It’s a sedan that looks beautiful, feels plush inside the cabin, comes with segment-first features, drives in a way that constantly puts a smile on your face, and brings safety tech that ensures that you and your passengers are always safe. Provided that this sedan receives the right marketing and after-sales service, we'd say that the new Honda City has all the makings of a winner.