India-bound 2017 Honda City facelift revealed

Honda has released the first set of photos and details of the updated City sedan in Thailand. The 2017 Honda City is likely to come to India by the end of January.

Up front, the new City gets a more family look, taking some cues from the Civic. It also gets a chrome band running across the grille and onwards over the headlights. The headlights have been reshaped and now come with LED daytime running lamps and projector units. The front bumper gets more prominent divisions for the air dam and fog lamp housings. 

At the back, the bumper sees changes and the tail-lamps get LED inserts that mimic Honda’s latest design language seen on the Civic and the all-new CR-V. In addition, the City gets more chrome bits on the boot lid, along with an integrated spoiler with a centre-mounted wide LED stoplight.

For India, Honda will bring back the ‘City ZX’ name for the 2017 car. The 2017 Honda City ZX will be a new top-spec trim which is likely to come with LED headlamps and additional equipment.

The side profile of the updated City remains the same, with larger 16-inch petal alloys instead of the 15-inch ones on the current model. The new City rides 10mm higher, thanks to slight tweaks to the suspension to help make the ride a bit smoother. The refreshed City will use the same set of engines that run in India – a 1.5-litre petrol and a 1.5-litre diesel.

On the inside, it will get an all-new 6.8-inch infotainment system with Android Auto and a mobile mirroring app. This system is being co-developed with Blaupunkt and will feature Indian accent-based voice guidance for the navigation system. The higher versions will get six airbags as standard, along with leather seats and a soft-touch dashboard.

In India, Honda still has a chunk of the 2016 Citys to sell of and hence, most Honda dealers across India are tight-lipped on the refreshed City’s details. Honda is likely to launch the refreshed 2017 City sometime in the end of January.