By David Bonnici
While it never enjoyed the popularity of the Jazz hatchback, the Honda City has blossomed into a decent and competitively priced car, that provides an excellent compromise between practicality and economy.
It’s also a nice-looking car and pretty cheerful to drive.
The 2014 Honda City 1.5-litre, four-cylinder engine couples well with the constantly variable automatic transmission to provide a smooth and reasonably responsive ride. It does lack some oomph, but the trade-off
is excellent fuel efficiency of just 5.1 litres
per 100 kilometres combined driving.
This is further improved with an eco-option for city driving. There isn’t a noticeable difference in performance, but blue neon-looking lights around the gauges turn green when you’re driving efficiently to provide a feel good factor.
If you feel like a bit of fun there’s a semi-auto option, with paddle gear shifts on a steering wheel that has a host of other well-placed buttons, including audio and cruise control.
The VTi-L’s dashboard is very modern- looking with a tacho and speedo being the only analogue gauges. These are accompanied by an LCD display with the usual trip computer information such as mileage, fuel gauge, fuel consumption and range to empty.
In the centre of the dash is a 7-inch glass touch screen, which looks big in this car. This is one of the better systems though, like many cars, you need an Apple device to use it to its fullest. There’s no in-built sat nav, but you can download a Honda navigation app in your iPhone which displays on the screen when connected via a HDMI cable.
The touch screen is clear and allows for swiping movements, though I found it was easier to use audio and phone buttons on the steering wheel while driving.
The reverse camera display is a highlight. The picture is clear, with normal, fish-eye and straight down views and guidelines that predict your path to assist you when reverse- parking or turning out of tight spots.
Other driving aids include hill-start assist and speed alarm, and there’s a host of safety features, including six airbags and whiplash absorbers in the front headrests.
The Honda City will seat five adults pretty comfortably and hold all their gear in the massive 536-litre boot, which is bigger than the Ford Falcon’s.
With the base model City VTi starting at $17,990, this should prove popular in the small-sedan category, though it remains to be seen if it will give the Jazz a run for its money.
The Honda City is available at Westside Honda, 2-6 Heaths Road, Hoppers Crossing. www.westsidehonda.com.au.
