Why the City is the bestselling Honda in the country

As much as I hate rush-hour traffic, I somehow miss all the hustle and bustle in a weird kind of way during this ECQ.

What I don’t miss is vehicle-jostling on the road that causes too much bumper-to-bumper action. And it gets harder and harder to do, and more tedious, the bigger your vehicle gets.

Imagine you’re in an SUV and are trying to merge, but no one’s giving way. That just drives me up the wall. The worst part is that it happens to a lot of us.

That brings me to the humble yet extremely popular Honda City — small, compact, and light to maneuver. It's probably one of best subcompacts in terms of ease of use.

Updated a few years back, I took out the Honda City 1.5L VX+ Navi so I can tell you about its added safety features, the facelift and plenty of tech upgrades as well.

Exterior

The overall shape and surface features remain the same. What does change are a few of its equipment including new a thinner headlight and taillight design to conform with Honda’s Solid Wing Face’.

This trim gets LED headlamps with LED daytime running lamps and LED fog lamps to go along with the sharper looking new bumper.

The rear sports bulb-type taillights are complemented a sportier rear bumper with a honeycomb bar at the bottom and reshaped rear reflectors. It sports a trunk garnish, a rear diffuser (with integrated reflectors), and uses a trunk release button for enhanced accessibility.

Subtle changes that may not stand out, but do enhance the look and make it much easier to use.

Interior

This badge probably has one of the biggest cabins in the B-segment. It also does a good job looking elegant with an all-black foundation and soft-touch materials highlighted by brushed chrome.

How’s that for starters?

You get leather seats and a leather-wrapped steering wheel with audio and telephony controls, and behind it is the Start/Stop button for ignition.

But the real gem of the cabin is the vibrant seven-inch touchscreen with navigation, Bluetooth/USB connectivity, and even HDMI input that’s now available across all variants with a continuously variable transmission (CVT). Despite the size and the angle being fixed in its place, it appears to have anti-glare properties and maintains superb clarity even as sunlight bounces directly off it. Its operating system seems to be in-house because it’s snappy and responds promptly with every flick of the finger. Whether it’s Bluetooth pairing with your phone, audio streaming, navigation, or getting data via USB, there’s no lag at all. The screen also doubles as the multi-view reverse camera with guidelines, and a big bonus is the voice command feature.

Engine

Its 1.5-liter engine is spunky in the city and that’s when you know it clearly lives up to its name being clearly tuned and designed to give that initial burst of power to get you quickly in metro traffic. Output of 120hp and 145Nm of torque is sent to the wheels via a CVT that feels very suave regardless of traffic conditions.

If you’re counting consumption, you’ll be glad to know this trim has a fuel consumption meter and a digital trip meter, which at the end of the drive read 8.7 kilometers per liter in pure city driving.

Steering is very light as is typical of vehicles in this segment and, combined with its compact dimensions, makes it great to handle when turning into a parking slot, merging in traffic, taking tight corners, and squeezing through narrow roads.

New features of this trim include dual side and curtain airbags, vehicle stability assist, hill start assist, and emergency stop signal.

Ride and handling

Having been in this segment for close to 40 years, this sixth generation has already perfected its performance. Noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) levels are very low while comfort level is very high making it basically similar to a Civic in terms of comfort, refinement and sharpness.

It sits on 16s with 55-series tires, which were quiet and didn’t really cause a peep in the cabin.

Low to the ground and with a wide enough base gives it good marks as well for rollover resistance.

On a side note, a seventh generation is on the way, probably this year as it was already launched in Thailand last year.

Verdict

But probably the best fact of all is this, the updated City, with new exterior features and fine cabin appointments, comes with the same old price. That’s real freebies and a performance to love in a vehicle that still retails for P1.003 million.

People didn’t balk as it breached the one-million mark and bought 5,717 units in 2019 making it the brand’s highest-selling unit last year.  Honda hasn’t detailed how that number is divided between the variants but I guess it only shows that in whatever form, whether it’s the City 1.5L VX+ Navi or the other trims, this is the best Honda for car-loving Filipinos.

Photos by Eric Tipan