new Honda City

The Indian market version of the highly respected automotive publication from UK, AutoCar, has released the first exclusive images of the new Honda City. This is probably the most important car launch of the year for ASEAN region markets, in terms of volume. Credits to autoincar for the scans below.

Sources cited by AutoCar indicates that global launch will be on November 2008, so expect launch in other countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand to follow suit within the next few months after that.

The current generation City. Image courtesy of Honda Malaysia

Unlike previous generation City which is built mainly with input from Thailand, the next City is developed with a lot of emphasis on the growing Indian small passenger car segment (on top of Thailand's market requirements) that is currently dominated by Maruti-Suzuki. Earlier, there have been spyshots of pre-production development units being driven around cities of India but I hesitated to post it up as I wasn't too convinced that it was the real deal. But if AutoCar publishes it, rest assured that it is the real deal.

New Honda City i-VTEC fully undisguised exterior and interior revealed!

It’s confirmed - the car we’ve been seeing in China and India is indeed the new Honda City. Reader xstan pointed out this flickr page with photos of the new Honda City - fully uncovered including photos of the interior!

It’s not known at the moment which country these photos come from. As expected, the interior is no longer based on the one in the Honda Jazz but instead uses a design that is perhaps cheaper to cast and manufacture.

The front is definitely inspired by the likes of the European Honda Civic and the Honda FCX Clarity. The headlamps feature reflector lense instead of the more expensive projector type, which is expected at this price range.

This new alloy wheel design has been seen on the previous rendering. It may differ from country to country. This shot of the rear wheel shows the use of disc brakes on the rear.

Another shot of the grille, headlamps and the 4 cylinder SOHC i-VTEC engine in the background

A light interior. Some markets may get a dark interior, hopefully. Our current City i-DSI and VTEC come with either a dark interior for the VTEC or a light interior for the i-DSI.

The 4-cylinder i-VTEC engine is expected to be the 120 PS 1.5 liter unit from the newly launched Jazz.

A clean and simple interior featuring integrated audio and the new design Honda steering wheel.

The meter illumination at night. Notice the paddle shifts behind the steering spokes.