Kishalaya

Honda Motor Co. President Takeo Fukui on Thursday unveiled a new version of the City, Honda’s best-selling compact sedan in India. Honda trying to cash in on the coming festive season in India has taken this step to launch the new honda city. Also the slowdown in US might have prompted Honda to strengthen their market in India.

In 2007, the current City model was Honda’s biggest seller, accounting for 37,000 of its total sales of 60,000 vehicles. In the first eight months of this year, sales of the current City were up 12% from a year earlier. The Japanese auto maker is expecting the new model to help lift Honda’s India sales above those of last year. Honda’s goal for 2008 is to sell 80,000 vehicles in India, though it may not reach that because of the slowdown.

This new City is essentially the third generation model from Honda in India.

Honda City is now priced between Rs 7.7 lakh and Rs 8.9 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). At this price the new honda city is the cheapest of Honda City, but it is still not in reach to the common car buyers. The company said that the car would be available in both manual and automatic transmission models.

The new Honda City model comes powered with a 1.5 liter i-VTEC engine.

Honda India also sells other models including Honda Civic and Honda CRV. They also sell the hybrid edition of Civic in the Indian market. Although Honda dominates the motorcycle market in India, the Japanese company doesn’t offer any models in India’s small-auto segment, which makes up the vast majority of car sales.

The new City was also launched this month in Thailand, one of 39 countries where the model has been sold since the first-generation City was launched in 1996. Honda India is planning to make the City one of its core models, similar to the Civic, Accord, CR-V and Fit.