Model Update

Like the thought of owning a Honda Jazz, but you are thinking that the load in the small hatch’s boot won’t be big enough? This is a problem easily solved. Honda offers the new Honda City in sedan guise. It has all the Honda Jazz hallmarks of comfort, fuel efficiency and refinement and adds extra rear leg room and a bigger boot. With 506 litres of boot space, the smart looking 2010 Honda City can carry pretty much anything you’ll need to hurl in. Rear seats that are 60:40 split makes loading larger objects a breeze.

Handy pockets, boxes and trays give the roomy Honda City interior plenty of practicality. And speaking of room, the Honda City has the best head and shoulder room in its class. Equipped with the latest technology, iPods. MP3 players. USB drives and CDs are all catered for.

Four cylinders that put out 88 kW at 6600 rpm and a torque figure of 145 Nm at 4800 rpm provide plenty of get-up-and-go, while the i-VTEC engine design has superb fuel economy.

A small car needs to be equipped with the best safety features, and the Honda city shines in this area. ABS, EBD and BA actively support the front and side airbags for front seat occupants. Full-length curtain airbags help guard front and rear occupants. Three-point seat belts for all occupants and pre-tensioned seat belts in the front offer excellent safety.

Priced around twenty grand, the Honda City is one of the better small cars to drive in a market jam packed with forgettables.

Back in the 1980s, a nippy little hatch burst onto the scene – the “hot child” Honda City, as the TV ad put it. After a bit of a lull over the last decade or so, the little car for big cities is back – the all new Honda City.

However, if you are still harbouring mental images of the old Honda City, all boxy lines and a chopped-short looking rear end, forget it. The new Honda City may have the same name, but it is sleek, smooth and stylish – and the new incarnation’s a sedan rather than a hatch. In the exterior styling, very little remains of the old Honda City that your grandma used to drive, except for some faint resemblances in silhouette when viewed from behind. The interior has been improved for the better, too, with more room for everyone, beginning with the driver and finishing with the boot compartment. Rear seat passengers no longer have to wrap their knees around their ears – you can easily fit the whole family (if you’ve got the average family of mum, dad and 2 kids) into the new Honda City and still have room for a small dog and the shopping. Even the glovebox is bigger!

And if you want something a bit extra special in a Honda City, then check out the special Honda Modulo body kit options – a choice of two alloy wheels, spoilers galore, side skirts and a sports grille. More than enough there to remove any potential sniggers from those who thought that a Honda City was for little old ladies (mind you, some little old ladies might like the hot body kit – depends on the little old lady).

Enough about the looks. New looks are nothing if what’s under bonnet is still what it was back in the 1980s. Does the new Honda City’s performance match the smooth new looks? Indeed, it does. Whether you take the 5-speed manual or the 5-speed auto version, the 1.5 litre iVTEC (which the City shares with the little Jazz, which has replaced the old City as Honda’s flagship hatch) delivers a whole lotta oomph for one little car. To put a figure on that oomph, we’re talking about 145 nM max torque (at 4800 rpm) and 88 kw max power (6600 rpm) – plenty to play around with on the highways… unless you want to kick back with the cruise control and listen to the music coming through the four strategically placed speakers. Controls for both (audio and cruise control) are mounted handily on the steering wheel. And it will be the music you hear, as Honda has developed the City to minimize road and other noise from outside with the sound-damping body shell.

Fuel efficiency is another big plus for the new Honda City – no conspicuous consumption or carbon footprint-stomping here. How does 6.6 litres per 100 km sound for the automatic version? Or 6.3 litres per 100 km for the manual version? And you can put these figures to the test with the fuel consumption gage which sits under the speedo on the easily navigable dashboard. The emissions levels have been kept pretty low – 148g/km of CO2 in the manual version (156 g/km in the auto), which easily meets Euro 4 specifications.

The new Honda City may be a sedan, but it’s still as handy and nippy in tight spots as the old version. Make that handier and nippier. The turning radius of this little beauty is a mere 5 metres, and the on-road handling is first-class: balanced, grippy and responsive.

As you would expect, the new Honda City has all the cutting-edge safety features, both passive and active, that you would expect a modern car to have, especially a compact sedan. Six airbags (driver, front passenger and curtain), pretensioner seatbelts and Honda’s G-Force Control Technology are all there to minimize the damage (to you) of a crash, while the excellent visibility and ABS brakes with EBD and brake assist will help you keep out of trouble in the first place.

The Honda City was unveiled at the Istanbul Motor Show in 2008 and is good to go here Down Under. Book a test drive and see what it’s all about today.

The current model series includes the:

• Honda City VTi
• Honda City VTi-L

For anymore information on the Honda City, or for that matter any other new car, contact one of our friendly consultants on 1300 303 181. If you’d like some fleet discount pricing (yes even for private buyers!), we can submit vehicle quote requests out to our national network of Honda dealers and come back with pricing within 24 hours. Private Fleet – car buying made easy!

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