Honda City

While the outer design of the Honda City still has some more years with its futuristic appeal, the interior cabin has begun to show its age. Nevertheless, it still manages to justify this sedan, with its broad design for the dashboard and center console.

The V-shaped theme for the centre of the steering wheel, with round buttons for audio, bluetooth and cruise control, looks and feels nice to hold, while the instrument console with blue backlit too looks nice, despite the dated fonts on display.

The centre console is slightly shifted towards the driver side, and feels quite upmarket with the large touchscreen infotainment system and a trapezoidal touch-sensitive panel for automatic climate control below it. The silver accents for the all-black coloured interior look nice as well.

While the Honda City is an entry-level and the most affordable sedan in the lineup of Honda in Malaysia, the car shows no signs of compromise when it comes to rear-seat comfort and space, which is capacious enough for five passengers. At 536 litres, even the boot space is massively impressive and outclasses some sedans above its class.

While the Honda City in this iteration has been in existence for almost half a decade and the launch of an all-new generation model is just around the corner, this version of Honda City still looks modern, thanks to its aerodynamic stance.

The slanting front profile with angular full LED headlamps with daytime running LEDs, along with thick chrome slab forming the front grille makes it look premium enough. Even the front fog lamps are full white LED units.

The side profile of the Honda City looks athletic, with a flowing design towards the rear, with the thick prominent character lien flowing through the doors. The machined alloy wheels and chrome door handles add to the rich appeal of this sedan.

The rear maintains the wide and sporty stance of the front, with sweptback LED tail lamps, along with a sleek chrome garnish joining these tail lamps.

Every generation of Honda City has been known for the perfect balance of plush ride quality and agile and sporty handling characteristics, and this particular version follows the suite as well. With Macpherson struts at the front and a torsion beam at the rear, the Honda City’s softer suspension setup and accurately weighted steering make up for an enthusiastic driving dynamic combination.

One can have the Honda City with one of the two engine options. While the 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine, which is coupled to a CVT gearbox and produces a maximum power output of 120 PS and 145 Nm of peak torque output, it is the 1.5-litre petrol-electric hybrid version which is the real deal. This variant sports a combination of the 1.5-litre petrol engine with an electric motor, which is mated with a 7-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox and produces a combined power and torque outputs of 138 PS and 170 Nm respectively.

The Honda City’s safety equipment list consists of front, side and curtain airbags, ABS with EBD and Brake Assist, vehicle stability assist, hill start assist, ISOFIX mounts for child seats, emergency stop signal and reverse parking sensors with camera.

The current generation Honda City might be an ageing product, however, it still has got the evergreen charm in its styling, which still looks youthful with the aerodynamic stance and LED lights. The City shows a perfect balance of plush ride quality and sporty chassis setup, which makes it an equally enjoyable car for both front and rear seat occupants.