The New 2014 Honda City is finally here
and we get under its skin to find out if it can regain its benchmark
status once again
There are cars and then there are cars.
The City has always had something about it that makes it the latter.
There is always something special about the introduction of a brand
new generation of a Honda City, and the new avatar is no different.
Launched first in 1998, the new 2014 Honda City will be the 4th
all-new generation (7th if you consider facelifts) of the car. The
City has always been Honda’s top selling car and has quite a
reputation of being one of the most loved and desired cars in the
sub-10 Lakh range of the Indian automotive sector. We take the new
City in both Petrol and Diesel avatar for a quick spin to tell you
what it is all about.
Exterior Design
Although the new Honda City looks more
like an evolution as compared to a revolution, there is a lot more
than meets the eye. Honda has applied its ‘H Design’ concept to
the new City following its recent global design direction. The new
City borrows a lot of design elements from the likes of the global
Honda Civic while maintaining a distinct Honda City feel. The new
2014 Honda City features much sharper lines and more aggressive lines
and angles when compared to the previous generation City. There is
also a noticeable difference in the overall stance of the City,
mainly due to the longer wheelbase of the car as compared to the
older outgoing City. But, the car certainly showcases what is
unmistakably a ‘Honda City’ look to it.
The Honda City perhaps looks best when
viewed from the front. With a large horizontally placed chrome slat,
the Honda City’s front grille displays a sense of luxury, a much
needed feature in a car that will cost about Rs 10 Lakh or
thereabouts. There is a very interesting styling feature just below
the chrome slat that runs across the grille structure giving it a
touch of additional character. This little styling feature
accentuates itself best on one of the lighter paint shades like the
silver or white of the 6 paint shades available. The front bumper is
extremely well styled with a lot of sporty attributes. The lower part
of the bumper has two very distinct edges that look phenomenal
although there are certainly some concerns about how these would
suffer from dents or chips while parking considering that they appear
to be the furthermost points of the new Honda
City Mumbai. The fog lamps too are enclosed in two very
aggressively angled grilles that further accentuate the sporty
pretensions of the Honda City. The front fascia then is a perfect
blend of a saloon that has both luxury and sportiness embedded into
its DNA.
From the sides, the new 2014 Honda
City Mumbai has a deep and distinctive shoulder line that
initiates itself from the rear tail lamps and angles itself downwards
towards the front wheel arches. Although this design feature masks
itself in the darker colors, the lighter colors like silver
demonstrate it exceedingly well. There is also a slightly
controversial styling aspect of the new Honda City which originated
from the front bumper and makes its way to the windscreen but one
does get used to it soon. The biggest difference in the Honda City
visually though is the rear. As many have pointed out, there are a
lot of BMW inspired touches on the rear that really make the Honda
City stand out. The large horizontally placed tail lamps connected by
a large chrome accent piece on the boot looks spectacular in every
sense of the word. The tailgate itself although a little tall, is
very well crafted and is much wider than the last few generations.
This in turn means that the loading bay on the new Honda City is much
wider than before and therefore has more boot space. One of the
biggest customer oriented feedbacks that we received from older Honda
City customers was the lack of enough lit-up areas in the tail lamp
which in some cases were actually safety concerns. That issue too has
been addressed with the new tail-lamp cluster which although we
expected to have LED tail-lamps has stuck to a more conventional
setup.
One of the biggest disappointments
though in terms of design are the new 15 inch alloy wheels. Not only
do they feel small and under designed as compared to the rest of the
car but they also look quite boring. In fact, we would gladly swap
these wheels for the ones that came in the older City or the optional
two-tone V-Spoked wheels that were offered on both the Honda City and
the Honda Jazz. The skinny 175 section tyres too make the Honda City
look a little disproportionate. We expect a lot of owners to swap
these wheels and tyres out immediately with either aftermarket or
Honda Authorised Car Dealers in Mumbai provided wheels.
Borivali Showroom and Service
Solitaire Honda
(Krish Cars Pvt Ltd)
C/O Shakti
Industrial & Commercial Centre,
Shakti Insulated
Wires, Rajendra Nagar.
Dattapada Road,
Borivali(E), 400
066
Mumbai, India
Sales : (+91) 22
6738 5555
Sales Fax : (+91)
22 6738 5500
Service : (+91) 22
6738 5588
Service Fax :
(+91) 22 6738 5577
USED CARS : (+91)
9870977006
Landline : (+91)
22 6738 5555
