Honda Singapore officially launched the new, fifth-gen compact sedan and here’s what really stood out at its debut

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SINGAPORE

UPDATE October 9 2020: We’ve tested the Honda City! Read and watch our review here!

Honda Singapore held its launch of the new fifth-generation Honda City compact sedan here today at Studio Point Kallang. 

CarBuyer.com.sg covered the announcement/pricing of the new model earlier in July, but with the official launch we now have all the details on the performance, specification, besides being able to look at the car in the flesh. 

You can view the live unveil of the City on FaceBook, which we saw in person, below, but if you don’t have time to go through the entire presentation, CarBuyer sums it all up with our five takeaways from the event.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CEbNDxynBF5/

1. It looks very, very different from before

Compact sedans, being on the less expensive end of the market, have never suffered with simple, straightforward presentation, but Honda is turning that on its head. The new City looks very Civic-esque, and having finally seen it in person, it’s probably the sportiest-looking compact East Asian car around. 

What’s interesting is how Honda has disrupted the typical compact sedan look, which has a large middle box and greenhouse that can appear ungainly on a small car. The City benefits by being longer, lower, and wider than before.

Honda says the design philosophy includes ‘Cutting Edge Light’ with aggressively-styled head and taillamps – you’ll notice the ‘gilled’ LED headlamps which look like they came from the larger Accord and Civic sedans. Honda says these are first-in-class with a full LED setup, meaning high beams, low beams, DRLs and turn signals. The rear lights have LED stop lamps, tail lamps and side markers, though the reverse lights and turn signals are not. 

Notice how there’s a new body-length crease that emphasises the bulge of the wheelarches and connects the head and taillamps, which Honda likens to a ‘katana blade in motion’. We don’t know about cutlery, but it is a very mature design feature which costs extra to engineer, and it also helps break up the typical compact sedan shape, making it less boring. 

2. Inside, it feels like a more expensive car

Sharp readers will say, “That’s because it IS a more expensive car!” But we’ll get to that at point five.

While it’s smaller, the City now feels – at the least – on par with its big brother, the Civic, in terms of interior quality. We had a thorough fiddle with everything inside, from door handles, to switchgear and haptic touch points, and it all felt very polished and solid, with no cheap creaks or clacking sounds. 

The wider footprint affords passengers more space with Honda saying the car now has 15mm more shoulder space for all passengers, and a 15mm increase to rear passenger knee space and a 5mm bump to headroom. 

The car also has a 7.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, features which we think consumers should rightly expect to be in every new car this year on, not just luxury ones.


The City even gets the Remote Key Start feature first seen on the Honda Accord, so you can start the engine and cool the car without even being inside. 

Continue to Page 2: Why there’s no turbo, why you could possibly even get a manual version

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