Enthusiasts generally make for good cribbers. They cribbed when the French TGV was outdone by the Japanese Bullet train. They cribbed when the Ferrari 360 replaced the 355 and when the Mustang lost its mojo in the nineties. They also cribbed every single time when a new lead tried to recreate Michael Hutchence’s magic with INXS. So when a section called Indian auto enthusiasts cribbed about the replacement of the tingly first-gen Honda City with a boring, subdued family saloon, nobody listened. Instead everyone went and bought the car in droves, dowries and duress. Honda had listened to the bean counters for a change and the beans were certainly sprouting money trees. The poor enthusiast had to make do with, er, well, compromises.
Compromises that Honda seems to suggest don’t have to be made any more. This, the new third-gen Honda City, seems to have gone back to the good ol’ days of being performance oriented, miting functionality of the second-gen with the style and performance of the first-gen. A compromise then, if you can call it. But is it? Will enthusiasts finally stop cribbing? Or will they opt for the competition? Let’s find out.
LOOKS & DESIGN
The Honda family look has been evolving for quite some time, though somewhere down the line, they seemed to have lost the plot with the last gen City and the current CR-V. Thankfully, things have turned around with the Inspire and Insight concept. The horizontal slats on the grille can be found on the new City as well. But squint your eye and hold the silhouette against the light and you will find a coupe-like shape at first, before you scream ‘eureka’ and call it a Civic copy.
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