Driving impression

Be at the wheels to get to the bottom of its working.

Honda recently launched the HondaCity ZX with the VTEC engine. Earlier when Honda had introduced the new City model they had dropped the VTEC from the mod-el line-up. The standard City came with only one engine option of a 1.5 litre petrol with 77bhp on the tap. A bit of let down for driving enthusiasts because the old City came with 1.5 litre VTEC as well churning out something close to 105 bhp.

HT Image

The City had always been a brilliant performer but the new City felt a bit mellowed down.The company of course justified it in the name of economy. Fuel average was the name of the game here and Honda felt that there were many more penny pinchers than eager drivers and with the gas prices soaring they are better off offering fuel economy than hardcore performance. And the sales proved that they were more right than wrong which meant that the enthusiast driver had to sit out. Till now.

Last month saw the reappearance of the VTEC and I recently had a second opportunity to blip the throttle on a longish drive. And I tell you that if you are looking for a sweet revving engine which goes to work with an unmatched zeal and an efficiency of its own then you can look as hard as you want but you won’t find anything to match this VTEC unit.

It is an ultra refined, super quiet and quick. In fact it is hard to tell that the engine is running many a times. It is that quiet but ask her to perform and every-thing changes. The mad rush of the wind rustling by and the frenzy of the tacho will tell you that this car is on the move and swallowing up the miles faster than you reckon. I won’t swear about the fuel average as I like to drive hard but I returned some-thing in the range of 12kpl and that for me isn’t too bad. But I be-lieve if you are gentle with the throttle you can probably get a10% improvement over these figures easily.