The 2014 Honda City was launched in India last week. Even before the car was launched, Honda had received 9,000 pre-bookings for the new City, with this number swelling to 9,931 as of January 9th.
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We were informed by Honda Car India's Senior Vice-President & Director of Sales & Marketing, Mr. Shigeru Yamazaki, that over 70 percent of the bookings were made for the new City diesel variant.
The diesel-powered City claims the title of India's most fuel efficient diesel car, with an ARAI claimed 26 km/l. It uses the same 1.5-liter i-DTEC diesel engine as the Amaze, though the 5-speed gearbox is replaced with a 6-speed unit. Though the City diesel produces 100 PS and 200 Nm of torque (identical to the Amaze), it manages to deliver 0.2 km/l more than the Amaze.
The petrol engine of the new City is the same 1.5-liter i-VTEC engine as the previous generation model. However, engineers have retuned it to produce 1 PS and 1 Nm more than the outgoing model, and as a result, the City petrol outputs 119 PS and 145 Nm of torque. It is available with a 5-speed manual transmission or a CVT automatic transmission.
The new City has been priced from INR 7.42 lakhs - INR 11.1 lakhs ex-Showroom, New Delhi.