The 2017 Honda City facelift was launched just about a month ago and the company said that the car has received over 14,000 bookings. The information was shared by Yoichiro Ueno, President and CEO of Honda Cars India on the sidelines of the launch of the all-new Honda WR-V. Ueno added that over 40 per cent of the bookings for the Honda City have come for the top-of-the-line ZX variant and that's quite surprising too considering the ZX variant costs Rs. 13.52 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). It's good to see that the popularity of the Honda City hasn't diminished considering Honda received over 5000 bookings within the initial 12 days.
Interestingly, Ueno said that the company wasn't expecting such a response for the Honda City's top-end ZX trim. Commenting on that Ueno said, "Last month we launched the City and we added a top variant (ZX). We thought the sales of this variant will be small; however, it's exceeding over 40 per cent of the total bookings. So, this shows if the product is good, customers are ready to pay extra." The top-of-line ZX trim of the 2017 Honda City is about Rs. 3 lakh more expensive than its closest rival Maruti Suzuki Ciaz's top-end ZDI+ variant.
The City ZX Variant Was Added As a New Top-End Trim for the Car
The model currently selling in the country is the fourth-generation Honda City. The facelifted 2017 Honda City went on sale in India last month on the 14th of February 2017. Now, we have already driven the car and told you about the extensive cosmetic updates it has got and the addition of several new features has made it even better. The Honda City now comes with LED daytime running lights as standard across variants, which is a segment-first. That said the city only gets the LED headlamps in the top-of-the-line ZX variant, which also comes with sporty alloy wheels. The rear of the 2017 Honda City sees LED taillamps and a LED strip on the spoiler which works as a high-mounted stop lamp as well.
Honda City Cabin
While there are a few changes in the way the cabin is, the basket of features on offer in the 2017 Honda City make it quite the offering in this segment. There's a new 7-inch touchscreen audio-visual navigation system with an Android-based interface, navigation, rear view camera. It also comes with 1.5 GB of internal memory, 2 USB slots and 2 micro SD slots as well. The new Honda City ZX trim also offers an electric sunroof.
Safety features on the Honda City include dual airbags, ABS with EBD, and ISOFIX mounts for child seats, all of which are standard. The top of the line ZX trim gets six airbags which include side and curtain bags. Features like automatic headlamps, auto on-off headlamps and automatic rain sensing wipers also make their way into this flagship grade.
Under the hood, the 2017 Honda City facelift continue to get the same 1.5 litre petrol and 1.5 litre diesel engine with no change in the power or torque output. While the diesel model gets a 6-speed manual gearbox as standard across variants, the petrol version gets the option of either a 5-speed manual gearbox or a CVT unit with paddle shifters, which is the case with the ZX variant.
Honda wants to get back into the game with the City and it has lost some ground in the recent past, from July 2016 to be precise. The 2017 Honda City is raking up the sales for Honda but Maruti Suzuki too is gearing up its Ciaz for a facelift and Hyundai is all set to bring in a new generation of the Verna. It'll be interesting to see how the 2017 Honda City stands to the test.
