Oh golly, it’s back! The ‘hot child’, the ‘80s prodigy, the Honda City – from beyond the grave it revives in a new incarnation, still small and robust and raring to go. It may still encompass the same soul, but the body is all change, however. Sleek, smooth, stylish – and sedan. Your grandmother’s old Honda city would barely recognise itself – or rather its newself. The interior has come on in leaps and bounds during the interval. It’s roomier, from front to back; no longer will your grown up passengers in the back seat need the agility of a porn star just to squeeze in.

And as if the standard improvements and evolutions aren’t sufficient, you have the option of glamming it all up still further, through the medium of the Honda Modulo body kit – select from alloy wheels, spoilers, side skirts and a sports grille. Not much in common with your grandmother’s, huh? (I presume…)

Enough about the looks. New looks are nothing if what’s under bonnet is still what it was back in the 1980s. Does the new Honda City’s performance match the smooth new looks? Indeed, it does. Whether you take the 5-speed manual or the 5-speed auto version, the 1.5 litre iVTEC (which the City shares with the little Jazz, which has replaced the old City as Honda’s flagship hatch) delivers a whole lotta oomph for one little car. To put a figure on that oomph, we’re talking about 145 nM max torque (at 4800 rpm) and 88 kw max power (6600 rpm) – plenty to play around with on the highways… unless you want to kick back with the cruise control and listen to the music coming through the four strategically placed speakers. Controls for both (audio and cruise control) are mounted handily on the steering wheel. And it will be the music you hear, as Honda has developed the City to minimize road and other noise from outside with the sound-damping body shell.

Al Gore will be happy – even if, these days, Kevin Rudd might just shrug his shoulders – because its fuel efficiency is one of the most impressive aspects of the new City. 6.6 litres per 100kms for the automatic model becomes a miniscule 6.3L/100 for the manual. If you’re as dubious of my wild allegations as the great Australian public are of Mr 07’s, it is the work of an instant to put these figures to the test with the fuel consumption gage which sits under the speedo on the easily navigable dashboard. The emissions levels have been kept pretty low – 148g/km of CO2 in the manual version (156 g/km in the auto), which easily meets Euro 4 specifications.

Sedan it may well be, but the new City is as whippety liquid mercury as ever it was in dipping around and through tight spots. Maybe even as never it was. It’s impossible for me to empirically falsify this, but I reckon it sneaks through gaps that the older version would have lost coats of paint to. The turning radius of this little beauty is a mere 5 metres, and the on-road handling is first-class: balanced, grippy and responsive.
As you would expect, the new Honda City has all the cutting-edge safety features, both passive and active, that you would expect a modern car to have, especially a compact sedan. Six airbags (driver, front passenger and curtain), pretensioner seatbelts and Honda’s G-Force Control Technology are all there to minimize the damage (to you) of a crash, while the excellent visibility and ABS brakes with EBD and brake assist will help you keep out of trouble in the first place.
 
So: a new breath of life on the old rag doll must have been fairy dust, as it returns not merely reinvigorated but actively outstrips the best of the old, and brings a little extra as the best of the new. A tidy little package indeed.

Specifications:
• Engine: 1497cc DOHC four-cylinder (16 valve)
• Power: 88kW @ 6600rpm
• Torque: 145Nm @ 4800rpm
• Induction: Multi-point
• Transmission: Five-speed automatic
• Driven Wheels: Front
• Brakes: Discs with ABS, EBA & EBD
• Top Speed: N/A
• 0-100km/h: N/A
• CO2 Emissions: 156g/km
• Fuel Consumption: 6.6-litres/100km (ADR combined)
• Fuel Consumption: 7.2-litres/100km (As tested)
• Fuel Tank Capacity: 42-litres
• Fuel Type: 91RON petrol
• ANCAP Rating: N/A
• Airbags: Six airbags
• Safety: N/A
• Spare Wheel: Full size alloy
• Suspension: McPherson strut (front), torsion beam (rear)
• Cargo Capacity: 502-litres
• Tow Capacity: 800kg/400kg (braked/unbraked)
• Turning Circle: 10 metres
• Warranty: Three-year/100,000km
• Weight: 1160kg
• Wheels: 16-inch alloys with 185/55R16 tyres