No other vehicle brand in India has been around for as long and as many generations as the Honda City. So how does the latest fifth-generation Honda City fare?
Back in the late-1990s and early 2000s, there were two cars that every hot-blooded young boy in Delhi and Mumbai wanted to drive. One was the Maruti Zen with the 60 horsepower MPFi engine and the other, the first-generation Honda City. The latter was a complete joy to drive, even with the 1.3 litre engine that had 90 horsepower, just a little bit loose at speed and an engine that revved like a dream. Little wonder then that the first-generation City held its value better than any of its contemporaries. And then, of course, there was the first Honda City VTEC, a car that in my mind will always be associated with a crazy driving run to Manali back in the winter of 2000. It was the perfect car for the perfect time of my life.
Of course, we are all older now and much more responsible. And the new fifth-generation Honda City appears to be similarly even more responsible. But is it? Has Honda City grown up like I have? Well, the City as we all know has gone through its phases. There was that wild second-generation design, the ‘Dolphin’, then a more sedate third-generation and a fourth-generation car that wasn’t bad but lacked some substance, particularly inside. Well, the new car, while based on the same wheelbase as the previous generation, is longer and importantly wider than the earlier model. And the width definitely makes a big difference. Even though a couple of centimetres may not seem like much, it does make a world of difference to your comfort at the back seat in a full car.
On the face of it, the rest of the interiors are also much improved than the outgoing model, at least in the higher specification variants. The seats are well upholstered, the fittings, the infotainment system screen, and an ample amount of luggage space. The thing that impressed me the most about the interiors was the solid feel of the plastics. Indeed, the new fifth-generation City addresses the single biggest problem with the previous model which were the pretty ordinary interiors. The solid feel to the buttons and dials make them among the best in class. I’m not however sold on the lack of a rotary dial for volume control. The instrument cluster has a physical speedometer but that is coupled with a seven-inch TFT screen which displays not just the tachometer but can also the trip information, mileage and interesting features such a ‘G-Meter’ to measure the physical gravity loads on the car.
On a Mercedes-AMG, a G-Meter is useful to see how crazy you are, on the City it is more a guide at how comfortable your driving style is for your passengers. A bit gimmicky, but as you will see this isn’t the only gimmick on this car.
So how does the car drive? Over here, I have to admit that I only drove the 1.5-litre iVTEC petrol version, which has an output of 121PS coupled with Honda’s CVT gearbox with seven forward speeds set. There are two reasons I did that, although I do hope to drive the other two options — the manual petrol and the manual diesel — soon, but I do feel that diesel vehicle sales are going to drop off a cliff, particularly in the NCR. The second is that if you buy a car to drive yourself for commuting, particularly in the Rs 12 to 15 lakh range, you will want an automatic.
I have written earlier about the CVT — Continuously Variable Transmission — which isn’t in my opinion the best sort of automatic transmission, particularly if you wish to have a good time. The thing is that this car is that it is called the ‘City’ and inside an urban environment, this CVT works very well. That said, the City is also equipped with paddle shifters and while they might not be all that useful, if you find yourself on the highway and want to have a good time, it does allow you to do that, albeit you really can’t red-line a CVT car.
But again, in daily commuter traffic, the CVT works excellently and even allows the car to deliver a decent fuel economy. Again, I have to state that the day I was driving this car, I got stuck in a fantastic traffic jam under Moti Bagh flyover, but even then I got around 13.1 kilometers per litre, but that included driving down the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway.The City has definitely grown up when it comes to ride and handling, the car is a comfortable place to be inside but at high-speed and at urban speeds, the steering is sharp and the car does not feel anything but assured when sharp steering movements are given.
But I guess this car has grown up a bit too much, it looks sharp with its shoulder line and the headlights and taillights, the latter even having a touch of BMW. It is nice to be inside and it gets the job done. But at a level, would the 22-year-old me approve of this car? I don’t think so, sure it has a great audio system and it is comfortable but it does feel a bit too sedate. In a market, where Hyundai has equipped the Verna with the 1.0-litre GDi Turbo, the City is the safe choice. Not the fun choice.
Before I finish the column, a word about the Alexa integration that you will be hearing a lot about in the coming weeks. I even did a short YouTube video on this. Frankly, this is nothing more than a voice layer on top of the Honda Connect application. After saying ‘Open Honda’ on the Alexa app, you could check your fuel levels, start the air-conditioner and even set the temperature but you cannot control your Amazon Prime account or use any of Alexa’s other myriad skills in the car, which in my opinion makes it slightly pointless, although this is something I would guess that can be added with a software upgrade later. You could however do the same thing from your Amazon Alexa devices such as the Echo that might be in your bedroom or living room. The City, like all its rivals, has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto (both of which also have Amazon Prime Music, if you subscribe to the service). So it does feel a bit gimmicky, but then again back in the late-1990s power windows were a gimmick. I will not therefore judge the Alexa system just yet and see how it evolves in the coming 12 to 18 months.
