Honda‘s new City on Valentine‘s Day at Rs 8.5-9 lakh

Moneycontrol Bureau

The second largest Japanese car brand in India Honda today said it will launch the new Honda City on February 14 with prices likely to start at Rs 8.5-9 lakh. With new variants to be added the Honda City will likely fall in the price range of Rs 8.5-13.3 lakh considering all its derivatives. This is the first major mid-life upgrade that the flagship Honda model is due to get, three years after it was first introduced in India. The City will compete against Hyundai Verna, Maruti Suzuki Ciaz, Skoda Rapid, Volkswagen Vento and Nissan Sunny.

Pre-bookings of the new car has begun at all authorized Honda dealerships across the country. Customers need to pay Rs 21,000 to book the sedan which has already reached the stockyards of some Honda dealers.The new City will come with LED package, enhanced safety package and a new AVN (audio, visual and navigation) system among others. And keep in line with the changing trends Honda could offer Android Auto in the City.

Some of the visible changes made to the exterior are LED inserts in the tail-lamp, a restyled front bumper, a boot-mounted spoiler coupled with chrome inserts

There is no change to the powertrain however as the sedan will continue with same 1.5 litre diesel and 1.5 petrol engines. Sources say there will be some shuffling of the number of variants the City presently has which is 16. The company may enhance the offerings with more variants.Yoichiro Ueno, President and CEO, Honda Cars India said, “The Honda City has been our most successful model ever since the start of operations in the country. It commands tremendous loyalty among customers and we are extremely excited to add another chapter to the success story of the model with the launch of the new Honda City 2017.”First introduced in India in January 1998, the Honda City is among the most popular sedans in the country and has a cumulative customer base of over 6.5 lakh owners. The 4^th generation Honda City, since its launch in January 2014, has sold 2.24 lakh units in the country.