The Jazz might have bid us farewell, but Honda didn’t leave us hanging for long. Occupying the space vacated by their 5-door icon is the new Honda City Hatchback. It combines the City’s new sleek styling with the versatility of the Jazz, resulting in a versatile car that exudes sportiness from all angles.
The new City Hatchback is slightly bigger than the Jazz it replaces. It’s 314mm longer, the wheelbase is also 70mm more, but it sits 36mm lower. The rear is also more rounded compared to the Jazz, and together with the RS touches like the rear diffuser, it gives the City Hatchback more attitude.
Speaking of RS, it only comes in that trim meaning it gets all the top-end exterior goodies that’s also on the City sedan. Black accents, a sporty fog light housing, LED headlights, LED fog lights, and despite having the same wheel design as the City sedan, the hatch has it in all-black.
Inside, the City hatchback carried over most of its components from its sedan twin. The push start button, paddle shifters, Apple and Android capability on the head unit, cruise control, 6-speaker system, and rear air vents with two 12V sockets – they’re all here. The stark difference would be in the front seats because unlike the sedan’s minimalist red stitching at the seams, this hatch has red leather accents on the sides and headrests.
It also inherited the highly flexible ULTR capability that’s a staple in the Jazz. That means you can fold the back seats for Utility mode, totally recline the front passenger seat for Long mode, flip the backseat up for Tall mode, and fully recline the front seats while the backseats remain up for Refresh mode, simulating a lazy couch experience.
Safety was not overlooked with the City Hatchback. It gets the full suite of safety bits like multi-view rear camera with dynamic guide lines, 6 airbags, ABS, EBD, stability assist, hill-start assist, and ISOFIX tethers among others.
Under the hood is the same 1.5L DOHC i-VTEC engine we’ve seen from the City sedan. It produces 119 hp and 145 Nm of torque, paired to a CVT. There’s an Eco mode button with Eco-coaching ambient light, should you want to be more frugal with your fuel efficiency.
The new Honda City Hatchback RS is available in four colors namely Ignite Red Metallic, a new Meteoroid Gray Metallic, Platinum White Pearl for additional P20,000, and Brilliant Sporty Blue Metallic that will come June 2021. Honda’s new hatch retails for P1,115,000 with an additional P13,000 deposit for the Safeguard Duty tariff.
