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Admit it, as a kid you always dreamt of being in one of those superhero cartoons. Whether you had x-ray vision or donned an invincible suit of armor, living a life set in pure celluloid fantasy always preceded dreams of becoming a lawyer, an astronaut or the pope. In my case, I wasn’t truly fond of superheroes; it was more of super robots and nothing was cooler than Daimos. I couldn’t care less that the story revolved around the forbidden love between the protagonist and the sister of his nemesis. When I was just eight years young, the only thing that mattered was that the spiky-haired hero drove a fantastically cool car. And that’s not all: he showed he drove with such precision that he always jumped off a cliff into his moving truck/robot in every episode just to beat the crap out of the bad guy’s giant monster. Reflecting on it twenty years later, this made absolutely no sense since the hero could have just showed up riding the truck/robot in the first place. But even I had to admit, seeing the car shooting into the truck’s cargo bay looked cool. This feeling of cool without necessarily needing to do so makes the new Honda City a delectable car. Honda could have easily brushed off the need to give it a sleek body since the City has always gotten the mechanical bits right. This time around, the City keeps its powertrain advantage but adds attention-grabbing looks in the process. Appearing in this shade of Habanero Red, the City certainly looks something straight out of Daimos or just about any Japanese anime that you can think of. The front-end may look a bit over styled with the dominant three-bar graphite-colored grille, squinted headlamps and wedge-like hood line but it does lend the impression that this car will transform into robot if you stare at it long enough. At the side, strategically placed creases and the movement of the side mirror from the door to the A-pillar give the illusion of size. The backside is no less dramatic with the irregularly angular trunk opening lending a sense of daring design. Unfortunately, once you get past the City’s Mr. Roboto exterior, things get pretty muddled the moment you step inside. The exterior will have you believe that you’ll need sensors suction cupped to your body or a fighter pilot’s stick for control, but you get neither. You don’t get a square-shaped steering wheel or even the Jazz’s space-age cabin. What you end up with is a solid but uninteresting interior that’s too ordinary in its execution; well maybe except for the center console which is neither solid nor easy to use. The copious amounts of silver plastic is enough to give it the flavor of a cheap stereo, but add flimsy buttons and controls, and you’ll start to think you’re in a Hyundai instead of a Honda. Notice too how there is far less controls on the stereo’s face than most other cars. Apparently Honda has aped the Germans making buttons share different functions. Want to eject a CD? You’ll have to press ‘Menu’ then ‘Select’ then look for the ‘Eject’ function. FM station presets? Press the ‘Up’ or ‘Down’ arrow then push ‘Select’. What used to take a single step process now takes two or three. After this, you really wish you had those suction cup controls. Though the City’s center console ends up on the ‘shame’ list, the rest of the car is still an ergonomic delight. The driving position is comfortable thanks to ample adjustment to both the driver’s seat and steering column. The three-spoke small diameter steering wheel (shared with both the Jazz and Civic) may block a chunk of the overly large speedometer, but it’s still nice to grip. The gear shifter is equally tiny and the movement between positions is small, but the engagement remains slick and accurate. |
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