Reference Auto

Honda’s highly popular sedan, the Honda City’s fourth-generation car, is set to be unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show this month with a refurbished design and is likely to be more spacious than the current model. It would come with premium features also, with one of the USPs being a diesel variant.

This plan of rolling out a diesel variant stems from the fact that the Amaze, with a diesel version, is riding a success wave with 35,000 cars already being offloaded since April.

Honda seems to be making an effort to rev up volumes and will also offer the new City in six to eight variants of 1.5 litre petrol and diesel engines. There would be an automatic transmission option also.

The City is somewhat based on the Jazz platform (which has been stopped owing to its feeble response) and the City is being made in a way so that it catches the eye of C-segment customers.

The City would be available with bigger wrap around clear lens headlamps with projector lights and come with reworked integrated LED tail lamps on the backside.

The car has been made bigger to take the place of the Civic also, which has been phased out and may carry a price tag of about Rs 10 lakh.

Mahindra has also been bitten by the ‘budget SUV’ bug so far as the XUV500 goes and it is bringing in an entry-level variant of the SUV, christened the W4, in a bid to give its popular vehicle a further sales push, pricing it almost at a steal (Rs 10.83 lakh, ex-showroom Mumbai).

The Mahindra XUV500 W4 does come with a host of adorable features (and at a lower price) like dual air-conditioning, MP3 player, and six-way adjustable driver’s seat along with electronically adjustable rear view mirrors.

The second and third rows stay foldable like the high-end XUV’s other models.

Other features like LED daytime running lights mated with a projector headlamp cluster and the chrome festooned grille stay in this variant.

Mechanically also, the XUV500 W4 is almost the same compared to the higher versions. The W4 comes with ABS, EBD and four-wheel disc brakes. It has a 2.2 litre CRDe engine that belts out 142 PS power and 300 Nm torque. 

The new Mahindra XUV500 comes with a six-speed manual transmission.

Executive director and president of Mahindra and Mahindra (automotive and farm equipment divisions) Pawan Goenka said, “The XUV500 has seen great response from car buffs. With over 74,000 vehicles on the road within two years of its launch, the XUV500 is one of our most successful rollouts.”

Despite a few deletions, the XUV500’s W4 is still better equipped than the likes of Renault Duster and Nissan Terrano (with a slightly higher price though). But a disadvantage of this model launch is that it may witness cannibalisation from cars in Mahindra’s own stable like the higher variants of the Scorpio.

So, a popular diesel car along with a more spacious new Honda City and Mahindra’s cheaper XUV500 W4 are surely going to jack up fortunes of the two auto majors.