When we think of cars for enthusiasts in India, the Honda Civic is most likely to cross everyone's mind. When Honda introduced the first-gen City for India, it heralded a new era of affordable, performance-loving sedans in India. As the company prepares for the launch of the 5th-gen City, we got our hands on it for a bit of fun in the sun. We were eager to know how long the new Honda City takes to reach 100kmph from a stand, and do it in real-world conditions. That means, we have two people onboard and the AC turned up to the desired temperature. We would also like to point out that these tests were performed on a closed, private road and should not be attempted by anyone on public roads.
The version we would be testing is the MT diesel variant of the new City which gets a 1.5-litre unit which develops a peak power output of 100bhp and a peak torque output of 200Nm. So without further ado, let’s see how well the new City performs in these acceleration tests. Right from the start, it was immediate that the car had loads of poke in the low end of its rev band but tended to lose out on steam once past the 3,500-4,000rpm mark. In the first run, the best time we could manage was 13.87 seconds. After which, lining up for the second run, we were getting used to the car’s shift point. We lined up, revved out the motor to 2,000and and shot straight into action. Our second run allowed us to reach the 100kmph mark in a faster time of 13.32 seconds. However, we weren’t satisfied and definitely knew the Honda City had way more to give. With a better idea of how much the car needs to be revved and where are the perfect shifting points, we lined up for our third and last run for the day. With the tyres now carrying the right amount of heat and the driver a lot more confident about how much we need to push the new City, we managed a time of 12.75 seconds. Ecstatic with the improvement, we decided to call it a day for our 0-100kmph testing. However, we knew that without a second person onboard and the AC turned off, we could have cut that time down further. However, this was a test to see how the Honda City performs the 0-100kmph runs in real-world conditions and we gained quite an insight in that aspect.
While it is yet to be confirmed when, the launch of the all-new Honda City is around the corner. Despite the diesel unit, the Honda City also gets a 1.5-litre petrol engine which develops 121bhp and 145Nm of torque. We have also done an acceleration test of the petrol version in its CVT guise and will be bringing that to you very shortly.
