GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
Not that the City hasn’t gone anywhere but what made the City, the City, is sadly long gone
The Honda City with its VTEC engine is a proper legend that is still tuned and raced by enthusiasts to this day
IN KEEPING WITH THE THEME of this issue, a celebration of great naturally aspirated engines, here’s the greatest ever shoe-horned into a car made in India — Honda’s B15C2 VTEC. And before you tweet your counter, here’s a measure of how great this engine is — 20 years after it was launched in India, 17 years after it was retired, it continues to power India’s fastest race and drag cars, albeit now boosted by a turbo. Flashback to 1998. Liberalisation had just kicked in and, unlike today, sedans were being marketed on the peg of performance. There was the Lancer with its rally heritage. There was the Ikon with its josh machine tag. The zingy Esteem had made us slobbering fanboys of Japanese engines. And there was the Honda City that took our slavish devotion to Jap engines and amped it to 10. It was the performance car of the time and in consequence the most desirable car of the era. But that was only the start for Honda. In 2000 VTEC kicked in, yo and the City cracked the magic 100bhp mark. Variable valve timing, commonplace on the weediest engine today, was an absolute novelty and it made the City a rocket. It also looked like one — the big boot spoiler, 14-inch rims (a big deal back then!), twin (fake) exhaust tips, holes cut into the head rests and silver finish on the cheapo dash. We ran a red VTEC long termer at Overdrive and the keys were perpetually at the centre of I’m-taking-it-home fights. Drive a good example today (so reliable there are plenty around, going real cheap too) and you’ll know why. You’ll also be surprised to discover that it has more verve, enthusiasm and sheer sensory overload than today’s sixth-gen City. What strikes you is how low you sit and the legs outstretched sportscarlike driving position. The A-pillar is so thin you both marvel at the excellent visibility and pray you never have a crash in it. There’s next to no sound insulation so the engine sounds absolutely magnificent. The gearbox shifts with that cliched hotknife-through-butter slickness. And when the VTEC kicks in at 5200rpm, when the revs rocket off to the 7100rpm rev limit, oh boy you remember why every Honda road test back in the day had the phrase ‘maker of the best engines in the world’. In all honesty the chassis was too soft, it rolled massively, it was too low and the body shell just didn’t have the torsional rigidity to handle Indian roads without warping. But it was light and that was all you needed in a fast car. It won its very first rally and it continues to win races and drags. Then, as now, tuners loved the B15C2 for the strength of its internals, and the port flow enabled by the large valves that, today, enables heavy turbo charging to create track and road rockets. Bangalore has plenty of the latter, thanks to The World’s Biggest VTEC Fan, Joel Joseph. A living embodiment of Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday, he uses all the motorsport expertise into tuning road cars that deliver as much as 180bhp in nat-asp tune to a wild 440bhp in turbo-tune. Of course the engine internals, suspension, brakes, everything is upgraded but the fact remains that no other car sold in India lends itself as well to endless tuning; no other car still has the desirability of the Type 2 City; and no engine can hold a candle to Honda’s original VTEC. ⌧
NO OTHER CAR SOLD IN INDIA LENDS ITSELF AS WELL TO ENDLESS TUNING