The Thai factory producing the new Honda City will be the mother plant for worldwide export as the Japanese carmaker designates this previously Asean-only model as the company's global entry-level sedan.
The third-generation City, which was launched here last month, has grown bigger and more sophisticated as Honda prepares it for a global audience, both in terms of aesthetics and engineering. Compared with its predecessor, the new City is longer and wider but lower, with a lengthened wheelbase for more cabin space.
According to Keiichi Ooka, Honda R&D chief engineer and large project leader of the City development team, the first-generation City was meant to be a "budget" car for Asean when it was introduced in 1996.
"The original City was conceived as an Asean-exclusive model," he explained during an interview at the recently concluded Singapore Motorshow. "But when we were designing the third-generation City, our management felt we needed a new global entry sedan because the Honda Civic had become so much bigger and moved upmarket. So we had to reconsider the City's role."
Another reason was that the Asean market had also become more savvy. So while the second-generation City was basically a Jazz hatchback with a boot grafted on, the latest City has been styled as a bona fide sedan.
In addition to not sharing any exterior or interior design cues with the popular Jazz, the City is also engineered differently.
"As we wanted to make a distinct sedan design with our 'Arrow shot form' concept, we had to totally re-engineer the basic platform," said Mr Ooka. "About 60 per cent of the platform is common to the 2009 Honda Jazz but we extended the wheelbase by 50mm to achieve class-leading interior space."
He added that the car is very advanced for an entry-level model because it has adopted international technical standards to meet "global engineering parameters for a wider market like the EU, for example".
As a result, the City achieves a Euro NCAP four-star rating for frontal collisions and side impact. Despite being a global model to be exported from Honda's manufacturing facility in Ayutthaya, the City will not be sold in Japan, said Mr Ooka.
"In Japan, Honda's share of the sedan market is very small. Our people in charge of the Japan domestic market do not think that it will sell well there although I personally think the Japanese people will like the new Honda City. In fact, if it is available in Japan, I will buy one for my family," said Mr Ooka with a laugh.
In Singapore, authorised Honda distributor Kah Motor expects to sell 120 units of the City a month, or about 10 per cent of its total monthly sales. There are two variants ? City and City LX ? with list prices starting from $62,300 (with COE) for a model with a five-speed manual gearbox. The automatic option can cost an extra $1,500 or $2,300 depending on the variant.
The higher-trim LX version comes standard with a rear reclining seat function, as well as an audio system with built-in USB and AUX-in ports. It has a user interface to cater to iPod connections, offering a large selector knob that simulates the push, turn and select functions of the Apple music device.
The third-generation City is very advanced for an entry-level model
because it has adopted international technical standards to meet
global engineering parameters for a wider market, says Mr Ooka.
This article was first published in The Business Times on Oct 22, 2008.
