Honda City Hatchback

Step into the cabin, and the Honda City Hatchback welcomes you with a wide-looking dashboard that looks the same as that of the sedan version. While Honda might have introduced a couple of changes to make it look slightly different, it nevertheless serves the purpose of making the cabin look wide and premium. While the regular S, E, and V variants get dual-tone black and beige upholstery, the top-spec RS variant gets an all-black leather upholstery with sporty red-contrasting stitching.

The three-spoke steering wheel with chunky-looking buttons and the elegant-looking monotone TFT instrument console with rounded dials look extremely classy for this car. The center console here looks wide with the 8-inch touchscreen infotainment system flanked by vertically laid AC vents with tapering down outer edges. There is a sleek-looking trapezoidal panel for the automatic climate control buttons, below which there is a carving that serves as a storage space. The AC vents, climate control panel, and transmission lever panel are finished in premium-looking piano black finish.

The space and equipment levels of the Honda City Hatchback are excellent, with the list of features having inclusions like an electric parking brake, rear AC vents, paddle shifters, cruise control, push start-stop button with remote engine start, and height-adjustable driver’s seat.

As the name suggests, the Honda City Hatchback is the hatchback version of the City sedan. The overall styling of the City Hatchback remains more or less the same as the fifth-generation City sedan at least till the B-pillar. Post that, the Honda City Hatchback gets individualistic C-pillar and rear profiles. All the changes made to it do make it a nice and premium-looking hatchback for its price.

At the front, the Honda City Hatchback gets the same fascia as that of the City sedan, with a wide front grille slapped with a thick chrome slab that extends over the headlamps on the sides. The wing-like wide and sleek headlamps look nice, and in the top-spec trims, they are all-LED units with dual functioning daytime running LEDs. The RS variant of the City Hatchback gets blacked-out treatment for the front grille instead of chrome and gets a unique triple slat garnish for the fog lamp housing.

The side profile is where the changes start to become more eminent. The door panels and door-mounted rearview mirrors are lifted off from the sedan, but the City Hatchback gets a truncated design towards the rear, as it misses out on the extended boot. The 16-inch diamond-cut alloy wheels get a different pattern here. In the RS variant, the rearview mirrors are painted in gloss black.

At the back, the Honda City Hatchback looks completely different from the sedan version. There is a rakish rear windscreen that ends up in a wide-looking boot lid that has license plate housing placed on it. The Mercedes-Benz A-Class-like wide and curved tail lamps mimic the LED inserts of the tail lamps of the City sedan.

The City sedan has a tremendous reputation of being high on comfort as far as ride quality is concerned, and the same feeling has been imparted for the City Hatchback as well. The car comes with Macpherson struts at the front and a torsion beam at the rear, which are tuned for optimal comfort levels.

The Honda City Hatchback gets the same 1.5-litre four-cylinder naturally aspirated petrol engine for the E, S, and V variants, which makes 121 bhp of maximum power and 145 Nm of maximum torque output. The top-spec RS variant gets a full-hybrid setup, with the 1.5-litre petrol engine paired to an electric motor. In the combined mode, the engine produces 109 bhp of maximum power and 253 Nm of maximum torque. A CVT gearbox is offered as standard, with the RS variant getting an electrically-controlled CVT.

The Honda City Hatchback is one of the most heavily-equipped hatchbacks in the country when it comes to safety. The car is loaded with features like front, side, and curtain airbags, ABS with EBD, vehicle stability assist, brake assist, hill start assist, reverse sensors and camera, multi-angle LaneWatch camera, forward collision warning, lane departure warning, road departure mitigation, lane keep assist, collision mitigation braking system, adaptive cruise control, and auto high beam.

The Honda City Hatchback offers the one-step above feel as compared to all the other hatchbacks currently available in the market. While the top-spec RS variant is pricey, it packs in much more premium and advanced features over other hatchbacks, which gives you an ownership experience of a car from one segment above.