I drive a Proton Waja Campro 1.6E manual. I rather like it. I like how it corners, I like it’s high speed composure, I like the precise gear change, and all those other little things Lotus has tuned into its handling. That stupid Campro torque dip aside, it’s a good drive. And since the built quality of the Waja has had visible improvement over the past 8 years, it’s not too bad living with one on a day-to-day basis - until you meet a really tight corner.

The Waja’s turning circle can be described as atrocious, and couple that with poor all-round visibility, it’s a pain to drive one in tight spaces. As such, whenever I have negotiate the backalleys of KL, or brave through the jams of Jalan Pudu, my mind goes back to my previous ride, which was a Proton Iswara 1.5 automatic. I’ll be frank here, when I first started driving the car, I hated it. In fact, I felt miserable driving it.

The big problem with this car, as we all know, is its antiquated 3-speed automatic transmission. The torque converter sapped so much power out of the 1.5-litre engine, it made the car feel heavy and immovable. Every overtaking maneuver had to be performed on second gear, or I would never have stood a chance. Same story with corners, in ‘D’, you simply won’t get enough traction to power out of the apex.

I was never in any danger of getting speeding tickets with this car, because I won’t be able to get close enough to the speed limit anyway, let alone breach it. Even in the off day that I do get the speedo close enough to the magical number of 110, because there is no overdrive ratio, the engine noise would be so loud, I would be forced to ease off before long.

The Iswara followed me to Penang for a working stint of three-months. There, in the congested streets of Georgetown and Bayan Lepas, driving was a living hell. The drivers seemed to have their testosterone levels set to maximum and motorcycles were all over the place. In these adverse conditions, the Iswara shined. There was no U-turn it couldn’t handle, no gap it couldn’t squeeze through, and no spot it couldn’t park.

That it was chronically underpowered was no longer of consequence, because, one, I’ve already learnt to live with it, and secondly, what good does 200bhp do when all you see is a never-ending crawl? In situations like these, all you’ll ever need are power steering, automatic transmission and an engine that’s good enough to move you to 50kph. The Iswara had all that, and more. It had a small turning circle and all-round visibility easily superior to my Lotus-tuned Waja Campro.

The Iswara was rubbish on the highways, but in congested town drive, it was brilliant. In that short spell in Penang, I actually grew to like that car, and I felt a tinge of sadness when it was sold. In many ways, the Hyundai i10 I test drove with my mates last Friday reminded me of that car.

Really? We’ll see…

Three of us walked into HYUMAL Trading Sdn Bhd’s showroom in Glenmarie, Subang. One of them helping to make a family decision in swapping their Perodua Kenari for a new car, and the i10 is in the shortlist. The display car wore in Inokom badge, and retails for RM48k. There is also the Inspired model that bumps the pricelist above RM50k, but you won’t need to consider that, as it’s all just cosmetic enhancements.

HYUMAL Trading Sdn Bhd, Glenmarie.

The base model already comes with all the necessary equipment – twin airbags and ABS the most notable. Only a 4-speed auto version is available, though the product catalogue listed specs for a 5-speed manual variant as well. Power comes from a 4-cylinder 1.1-litre engine, whose output is too small to be of any consequence. Interior materials and built quality are not impressive, but not at levels that you would feel short changed.

 
Dash materials a little cheap, but still well put together. Twin airbags standard.

1.1-litre four-pot produces double digit torque and horsepower figures.

On the road, it was bad. I have read about cars that ’sing’, or for the modest ones, ‘progress’ their way to the redline, this one had to be dragged kicking and screaming its way there. Wherever ‘there’ is, because there’s no tachometer to tell. I did, however, appreciate the nice weighty feel of the steering, which at least allows you to take a decent corner. At the upper reaches of our national speed limit, this car is seriously out of depth and out of breath.

No tacho

However, when driven sedately, the i10 becomes quite alright. It fulfills the brief of a city car well – good visibility, ease of driving, and ease of parking. In fact, and this is a surprise, the i10’s steering actually lightened when parking, which means that this car comes with variable rack steering – which is unbelievable for a car at this price. Like my old Iswara, this is a car that would shine in the streets of Georgetown and KL, but is probably rubbish on PLUS Highway.

(+): Twin airbags, ABS, variable rack steering, EuroNCAP 4-star rating - who else offers that at this price?
(-): Engine very unrefined, build quality barely acceptable.

Verdict: Perfect for cities like KL, JB and Penang, just don’t travel between them.

As with any car launch, members of the press are showered with stacks of technical & promotional material in an attempt to ensure that all the finest attributes of their cars go into print.

It goes without saying that the folks at the Honda press relations department did their homework well, and furnished us with tonnes of stuff to write about how wonderful the all-new City is. As you read on, you would no doubt find some of their sales language to be rather over-enthusiastic, but don’t worry, I’ll water them down for you and filter it down to the bare essentials.

Despite losing out in terms of sales volume to the Toyota Vios, the outgoing City accounted for a sizable portion of Honda Malaysia’s sales, and it’s therefore essential, especially in the current climate, that no one in the whole setup mucks this one up.

Being the fourth market (after India, China and Thailand) to receive the new fifth generation City, many enthusiasts in Malaysia are already well aware of the new City’s features and specifications via the Internet. Honda Malaysia cleverly used this awareness and stirred up the public’s excitement over what actually is a bread-and-butter model.

Despite boasting what was a superbly designed interior, unparalleled in terms of space and practicality, and also a fuel thrifty drivetrain, the fourth generation City lost out many sales to the Toyota Vios due its awkward looks and its perceived lack of sportiness compared to its competitor from the big T.

Having test driven a couple of units of the outgoing City, I too felt that, while it was an ingeniously packaged product, full of brilliant touches, it wasn’t terribly interesting or exciting to drive. The weird shape no doubt put off many younger buyers too.

The irony of that was not lost on Honda and this time round, they have given the City a sharper edge, with more aggressive styling, more enthusiastic aura and more powerful marketing language. In this post, I shall attempt to examine and dissect the contents and boasts of the new City’s spec-sheet.

I don’t doubt its style, but let’s examine its substance.

First Impressions

Honda went out of its way to build a sportier and more energetic image for the new City – evident in repeated use of words such as ’style’, ‘excitement’, and ‘dynamic’ in the whole launch affair. There was a lot of enthusiasm and energy emanating from the Honda camp on this product.

On style and image alone, the new City is definitely a leaps-and-bounds improvement over the old. The design language revolves around what Honda terms as the “Arrowshot Form”, in which the City’s overall profile is supposedly reminiscent of an archer ready to fire his bow.

The all-new Honda City.

Where the outgoing City was offered with the choice of two 1.5-litre engines coupled with a CVT, the new one comes with only one powertrain option: a 1.5-litre i-VTEC engine with a conventional 5-speed automatic transmission. No consumption figures are available at the moment, but one can expect a slight increase compared to the old model at the very least.

1.5-litre i-VTEC engine.

For the interior, the engineers has also decided to forego some of the renowned practicality of the old model and infuse a bit more style into the cabin. The dash no longer features dual gloveboxes to start with, and the omission of Ultra-Seats was most unfortunate, being replaced with a conventional 60:40 split-folding rear seat back that could also recline.

Interior sacrifices a little on practicality for style.

Trim Level & Prices

The new City comes available with two trim levels, priced at RM5,000 apart from each other with the Grade S going for RM84,980 and the Grade E going for RM89,980. Mechanically identical, the two variants are also not far apart in terms of specification levels, with the cheaper Grade S also having twin airbags and rear disc brakes as standard.

Differentiating them are items such as rim sizes, fog lights, side-mirror signal lights, chrome finish exhausts, transmission paddle shift, steering wheel audio control, leather finishing for the steering and gear knob and auto retract door mirrors. A big miss for those opting the Grade S variant will be the split-folding rear seats, as they will be getting fixed rear seat backs. The extra RM5k Honda asks for the Grade E isn’t a lot, but the Grade S is pretty much all the car you need.

HM has also made available to customers the option of specifying their cars with Modulo accessories designed specially for the City. The accessories can be ordered individually, or lumped together into a RM4,750 full bodykit package. Not being a fan of non-performance enhancing parts, it’s not an option box that I’m too keen to tick.

City specified with RM4,750 Modulo bodykit.

The 16″ Modulo rims, available only for the Grade E is a nice alternative to the stock rims, but rather pricey at RM2,480. The good news of course, is that all these (rather pricey) little goodies are covered by the car’s standard warranty.

Concept & Philosophy

Throughout the whole launch event, those present were fed with a diet of words coated with a high dose of enthusiasm (some of them a little over the top). Indeed, there was no mistaking the fact that Honda went out of its way in its attempt to create a strong enthusiastic appeal for the new City.

According to Mr Takeshi Nakamura, Chief Engineer of Honda R&D Co. Ltd., “We identified key words that capture the ideas of visual appeal, performance and comfort. The expression of a ’strong’ appearance is especially essential. From there, we created the concept of Advanced Proud Sedan.”

Powerful words there, Nakamura-san. Three important cornerstones were named in the design brief of the City, they were stylish design, smart package, and smooth driving. The goal was to create a car that had enthusiastic, performance and practical appeal all-in-one. Laudable goals indeed, but a tough one to pull off.

The philosophy behind the new City – a brief too big to fill?

Honda got the stylish design part right, and they got it very right. Inside and out the new City has far greater presence and aura than the outgoing model, but it isn’t as smart a package with the removal of quite a few key features that defined its predecessor. The smooth driving part will be investigated in greater detail over a test drive.

Exterior Design

Compared to the bulbous and often criticized shape of the outgoing City, the new City goes back to far more conventional sedan proportions and is peppered with more aggressive and advanced details.

Being the first City marketed in Europe, it’s not surprising that the front end borrows heavy design cues from the European version Civic hatch and Accord Euro. This gives the City a far more distinctive and futuristic look from the front, with the headlights and grille forming a one-piece illusion.

More distinctive front end.

The side profile is where the City looks its best. It now looks like Honda really designed the City from ground up as a car on its own rather than apparently slapping a huge boot on the Jazz for the previous City.

The City’s best angle.

The rear end does not look too exciting, despite Honda’s description of it being the ‘unforgettable rear view’. In fact, when viewed from the rear three-quarter angle with a lowered perspective, it looks rather top heavy. How Honda feels that this design look suggests ‘greater stability’ is rather beyond me.

Hardly the best view of the car.

It may not look much, but the design of the bootlid probably consumed far greater engineering hours than we would imagine, thanks to the “upside down Y-shape” (Honda’s words, and it took me a while to figure it out too) cut-off line between the lid and the tail lamps. In order to avoid any interference with the tail lights when opening, the hinges and opening motion of the bootlid had to be engineered in precise detail.

For the wheels Honda specified two different and distinctive rim designs to differentiate the two model variants. The simpler 15 x 5.5J rims of the Grade S actually look better than the more elaborate 16 x 6J versions equipped for the Grade E. Oddly however, the tyre sizes specified are not of the commonly available variants: 175/65 R15 and 185/55 R16. Good luck when hunting for replacements.

Unusual tyre sizes: Grade S gets 15″ rims shod in 175/65 tyres, while Grade E gets 16″ rims shod in 185/55 tyres. This writer prefers simpler rim design of 15″ set.

Interior

The interior of the new City is created based on the concept of a ‘Cool Lounge‘, which supposedly creates a (warning: marketing jargon alert) ‘relaxing atmosphere with strength and character.’

Honda also claims that ‘colours and materials were carefully selected to complete a cabin that instantly relaxes and cools down passengers as soon as they get into the car.’ Well, at least we know they’ve done their marketing survey as far as Malaysia is concerned.

The outgoing City trumped all competitors from its class and beyond in its interior packaging. That Honda managed to fit a hugely spacious cabin into a rather small body was amazing enough, it also incorporated many ingenious features and touches that demonstrated amazing thoughtfulness on the part of its engineers.

However, inline with the new City’s overall more aggressive design stance, some of the clever practicalities of the previous car were jettisoned in the name of style. Two gloveboxes were reduced to one, and the Ultra-Seats, a defining feature of the previous City were dropped.

Dash now features only 1 glovebox. Steering wheel with tilt & telescopic adjustment borrowed from Civic.

The centre console is given a brushed metal finish and features an integrated audio head unit with three big dials to control the air-conditioning unit. It’s plain looking, but being simple & uncluttered it doesn’t take a genius to operate, a welcome contrast to the confusing buttons galore on the Accord I tested last weekend.

Centre console with iPOD dock.

The instrument cluster consists of three gauges: the speedometer in the centre flanked by the tachometer and the fuel gauge. Like in the previous City, Honda has chosen not to include a water temperature gauge, which is an unacceptable omission in my view. The digital trip computer display shows the odometer, tripmeter, fuel consumption indicator and range indicator. In surely what was unrestrained overstatement, Honda proclaims it as an ‘Advanced Meter Design‘. You decide.

Look advanced to you?

In place of the sorely-missed Ultra-Seats are the 60:40 split-folding rear seatbacks that can also recline. There is also a huge underseat tray below the rear seats to compensate for the reduced storage capacity. However, neither of these items will be available with the Grade S trim, which makes do with fixed rear seats.

60:40 split-folding and reclining rear seats

Under-seat tray to stash your… umbrellas.

During the press conference, it was explained that the Ultra-Seats were omitted because it compromised on rear occupant comfort and that the 60:40 folding seats were adequate compensation for their deletion. Surprisingly though, Honda didn’t even bother to engineer the folding seats to create a flat-floor with the boot. The reclining seatbacks are a nice novelty, but I’d take the Ultra-Seats any day.

Fortunately, Honda still left many other thoughtful touches in the cabin in form of tiny storage areas all over the car. There are a total of three cupholders (plus two in the centre armrest, available only for Grade S), the centre console box, a little slot beneath the driver air-con vent, front seat pockets and door pockets each side still ensuring ample storage space for loose items.

A little piece of irony, I actually hitched a ride from a friend driving a 1996 Honda City to the launch of this new City. While in her car, a little thought crossed my mind when I was holding my phone on my left hand, resting on the door armrestwith the phone over the position of the power window switch, I thought it would be nice if there was a cubby hole there just to fit my phone. Hence, I was both amazed and amused when I found that the new City does indeed have a little slot just behind the passenger’s power window switch just big enough for a handphone.

The Powertrain

The City’s drivetrain, according to Honda’s engineers, is engineered to provide a ‘gutsy & relaxing’ feel. The claim is that the City is going to deliver responsive performance when prodded and yet cruise in comfort. Once again, big words – but the numbers supporting them are encouraging.

Under the hood is a 1,497cc 16-valve SOHC i-VTEC engine producing 120PS @ 6,600rpm and 145Nm @ 4,800rpm. Putting that figure into perspective, the outgoing City VTEC’s engine produces 110PS @ 5,800rpm and 143Nm @ 4,800rpm. A more telling comparison is that Proton’s 1.6 Campro CPS powerplant is only slightly more powerful being rated at 125bhp and 150Nm.

(Note: PS stands for Pferdestarke, which is the German term for horsepower.)

Besides being armed with Honda’s i-VTEC system, the engine also features a host of technological improvements such as drive-by-wire technology, high-strength light weight con-rods and rocker arms, patterned piston coating and an auto tensioner to regulate belt tension.

All the abovementioned technology, and others, help to chart out an impressive power and torque curve for the engine, ensuring a minimum 120Nm of torque available at all RPMs. A laughable claim is that a torque dip at 3,500rpm is engineered to engine’s character to deliver ’smoother driving performance’. I drive a Waja Campro, and I know for a fact that dips in the torque curve don’t contribute to smoother driving.

Power & Torque Curve compared to old City. A minimum of 120Nm of torque available across the range. Torque dip at 3,500rpm ’smoothens driving performance’. Beat that.

For the Malaysian market, Honda is specifying the City with only one transmission, a 5-speed automatic. While still a class leading specification, it is still unfortunate that we will be missing out on the 5-speed manual version or the 6-speed i-SHIFT automated manual transmission that is available in Europe.

Buyers of the Grade S variant will get a straight forward [P R N D D3 2 1] gear interface. There is no OD OFF button to block off only the fifth gear, with drivers only having the option of manually selecting the first three gears. If you opt for the Grade E spec, your gear interface is a simpler [P R N D S], and you get paddle shifters to enable you to manually select each of the five gears.

I used to be a big fan of semi-auto transmissions, but the truth is, after a while the novelty of these things wear off, because at the heart of it, it’s still an auto. Nonetheless, it’s still useful in an auto that the driver has the option of manually selecting any gear of his/her choice, which is why in the case of the City, the paddle shifters would actually be useful.

5-speed auto standard. Paddle shifters available for Grade E only.

Chassis

New chassis

Honda claims to have successfully increased the rigidity of the City’s chassis compared to the outgoing model while maintaining the same overall weight. It incorporates the best features of Honda’s advanced chassis engineering such as G-Force Control Technology(G-CON) and Advanced Compatibility Engineering (ACE) – features which scored the Accord Euro a five-star EuroNCAP rating.

Like its predecessor, the City does not get independent suspension all-round. It’s the same old story of the MacPherson struts up front and a torsion beam rear axle – not something boast too loud about to your friends who drive Proton Wiras and Personas with multi-link rear suspension.

The electric power steering system also stays, but Honda claims that they have reworked the system to give it a more ’steady and direct steering feel.’ Whatever they mean by that, it had better be a substantial improvement over the dead-feeling and over-assisted steering of the outgoing City.

Stopping power is provided by four disc brakes supplemented by ABS, EBD and Brake Assist (BA), which to Honda’s enormous credit, are all standard for both trim variants. Should that fail to stop you in time for a collision, twin airbags (standard on both variants) will deploy to increase your chances of survival considerably.

Finally…

Without a proper test drive, it is impossible and inappropriate to give a car a proper verdict. The specs sheet give a positive first impression, and the reported 3,000 bookings received by Honda Malaysia is testimonial to Honda’s badge credibility.

Overall, the new City looks like a far more exciting product than the outgoing car, despite dropping a few of the old car’s unique selling points – the CVT and Ultra-Seats being notable omissions. Where the old car was marketed purely on its clever and practical features, the new one sacrifices some of that in the name of style and desirability.

On paper alone, the new City remains a very competitive, and very capable car. Honda set itself a target to come up with a car to be all of practical, sporty and stylish at the same time. The boys at Honda are obviously very proud of it, but I am wondering if they have given the City too big a brief to fill.

Only a test drive will tell.

Some hours ago, someone in a press room in Stuttgart put together a news release to announce to the world that the W204 Mercedes-Benz C-class was named in as one of 2009’s Top Safety Picks by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS), adding another star to the C-class’ cap after receiving a five star rating by EuroNCAP. In essence, the IIHS’ crash test IS the United States’ answer to the EuroNCAP.

In the IIHS crash tests, cars are subject to frontal and side crashes, besides a rear impact test where evaluations to the cars’ protection against neck injury are evaluated. According to Mercedes, the W204 scored ‘top marks’ for each of the criteria, but whether the term is defined to mean maximum marks or highest marks among competitors could not be ascertained.

The US spec C-class which was tested had seven airbags, belt tensioners, belt force limiters and NECK PRO crash-responsive head restraints fitted as standard. Buyers can also opt for an anticipatory occupant protection system (dubbed PRESAFE) which pre-activates certain safety systems when it anticipates a collision to be imminent – a system that Mercedes claims would reduce the impact on occupants by as much as 40%.

Merc C-class, one of 72 Top Safety Picks of 2009

But, I was not going to just take Mercedes’ side of the story, and thus I went on to examine the claims at the IIHS’ official website (link here) where they listed no fewer than 72 Top Safety Picks for 2009 with another 26 ‘also-rans’. Here they are: (cars sold in Malaysia highlighted in bold)

Large cars
Acura RL
Audi A6
Cadillac CTS
Ford Taurus
Lincoln MKS
Mercury Sable
Toyota Avalon
Volvo S80

Midsize cars
Acura TL, TSX
Audi A3, A4
BMW 3 series 4-door models
Ford Fusion with optional electronic stability control
Honda Accord 4-door models
Mercedes C class
Mercury Milan with optional electronic stability control
Saab 9-3
Subaru Legacy (previously sold in Malaysia)
Volkswagen Jetta, Passat

Midsize convertibles
Saab 9-3
Volkswagen Eos
Volvo C70

Small cars
Honda Civic 4-door models (except Si) with optional electronic stability control
Mitsubishi Lancer with optional electronic stability control
Scion xB
Subaru Impreza with optional electronic stability control
Toyota Corolla with optional electronic stability control
Volkswagen Rabbit (VW Golf)

Minicar
Honda Fit with optional electronic stability control (Honda Jazz)

Minivans
Honda Odyssey
Hyundai Entourage
Kia Sedona

Large SUVs
Audi Q7
Buick Enclave
Chevrolet Traverse
GMC Acadia
Saturn Outlook

Midsize SUVs
Acura MDX, RDX
BMW X3, X5
Ford Edge, Flex, Taurus X
Honda Pilot
Hyundai Santa Fe, Veracruz
Infiniti EX35
Lincoln MKX
Mercedes M class
Nissan Murano (only unofficially availabe in Malaysia)
Saturn VUE
Subaru Tribeca
Toyota FJ Cruiser, Highlander
Volvo XC90

Small SUVs
Ford Escape (new generation not sold in Malaysia)
Honda CR-V, Element
Mazda Tribute
Mercury Mariner
Mitsubishi Outlander
Nissan Rogue
Subaru Forester
Toyota RAV4
Volkswagen Tiguan

Large pickups
Ford F-150
Honda Ridgeline
Toyota Tundra

Small pickup
Toyota Tacoma (Toyota Hilux)

ALSO-RANS
These 26 vehicles earn good ratings in front and side crash tests. They have ESC, standard or optional. They would be 2009 Top Safety Pick winners if their seat/head restraints also earn good ratings:

Chevrolet Malibu
Chrysler Sebring, Sebring convertible, Town & Country
Dodge Avenger, Grand Caravan
Infiniti G35, M35
Kia Amanti
Lexus ES, GS, IS
Mazda CX-7, CX-9
Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder, Endeavor
Nissan Altima, Pathfinder, Quest, Xterra
Saturn AURA
Smart Fortwo
Toyota 4Runner, Camry, Prius, Sienna

The Honda Accord has been put through the stringent EuroNCAP crash tests, and has emerged as the best performer in the Large Family Cars category – which, for this year, included the Audi A4, Citroen C5, Opel/Vauxhall Insignia, Lancia Delta & Skoda Superb. For the record, EuroNCAP also classified the Waja as a Large Family Car when they crash tested it in 2002.

“We are delighted with the EuroNCAP result, which confirms the new Accord as the leader for combined adult, child and pedestrian safety in the large family car class. Add to this the advanced active safety features of the Accord and customers can experience the most effective safety technologies put into practice with our goal of providing safety for everyone,” said Ken Keir, Senior Vice President of Honda Motor Europe.

EuroNCAP 2008 scores for Large Family Cars category.

Mr Keir is rightly proud of the Accord’s impressive showing, but in his delight, he also neglected to tell us that the Accord actually isn’t leading the competition by a huge margin, with only its strong performance in the area of pedestrian protection (and let’s give Honda credit for that), giving the Accord its edge in the tests. For adult and child protection, all the cars compared in the category fared rather close. In fact, I would say the Skoda Superb ran it rather close.

According to the official results, the Accord even scored maximum points for child protection for infants below 3 years-old in an impact, but was (presumably) penalised because the label to warn drivers of the dangers of using a rear-facing child seat at the front without having the airbag disabled was not available in all European languages. Go and scratch your head on that one.

The Honda press release trumpeting this achievement also went on to list down the safety features available in the Accord, which included Vehicle Stability Assist, Motion Adaptive EPS, and the Advanced Compatibility Engineering Body Structure. There was also the impressive sounding Advanced Driving Assist System (ADAS) which is a combination of three systems working in tandem: Lane Keeping Assist System, Adaptive Cruise Control and Collision Mitigating Brake System, all available either optional or standard on board the 2.2 i-DTEC version of the Accord Euro tested by EuroNCAP.

That was certainly an impressive list of terms, but judging how unfamiliar they seem, it’s highly unlikely that most of these are available in our Asian-spec version. It’s too bad we don’t have a similar body in this part of the world to crash test cars that are relevant to us.

Nothing to stop you crashing your Accord, though chances are, you’ll walk out of it unhurt.

Don’t try it with this one yet though.

Read more: Accord’s EuroNCAP results, EuroNCAP home

Those of you who participated in the Peugeot 407 ‘Test Drive Me’ campaign a couple of weeks back might have received a letter from Nasim which reached my mailbox today. The letter, with a printed signature of the General Manager thanked (of course) my participation of the event and hoped that the 407 met my expectations on what a ‘Prestigious and Luxurious automobile constitutes with its complement of luxurious fittings.’

The rest of the letter is pretty much standard sales and marketing talk as well. Also included in the packaged mailed to me was a little booklet pitting the 407 against a couple of ‘anonymous’ competitors from the D-segment code-named TC and HA. The little booklet, titled Let’s talk cars – The real facts…, contains a list of features that comes with the 407 and compares it against the TC (in its 2.0E and 2.0G guise) and the HA 2.0VTi. Any idea who these competitors are?

Most of the comparisons were valid, though some were irrelevant as well. Of course, it goes without saying chinks of the 407’s armour against these ‘mysterious’ competitors were not mentioned in great detail. I was impressed that the 407 had 2 side airbags, 2 curtain airbags & 1 knee bag in addition to the usual twin airbags, while its competitors only make do with the twins. The 407 is also certified with a 5-star rating by EuroNCAP while the new TC and HA have both yet to be tested by EuroNCAP – so, if TC and HA also scores 5-stars, then what?

Another trump of the 407 over the TC and HA is the impressive 7″ LCD with touch screen. While the 407’s screen includes control of the GPS, trip computer, ICE system and air-con, the TC’s display only shows the trip computer and exterior temperature. The HA does not even have one. The 407 also has rear seats with ISOFIX child seat mounts and 60:40 split folding seat backs, features that both competitors also do without.

The 407 also has the following features which the 2 competitors don’t: headlamp washers, cruise control, leather seats, and the list goes on, and at a glance, it looks like a comprehensive victory for the 407, but is it? I mean, are 17″ rims really that much of an advantage over the competitor’s 16 inchers? The booklet even goes on to compare the windshield wiping patterns, shape of the wiper blades, the ICE and a few other stuff that seems rather irrelevant.

It highlights the fact that the 407 has more torque than the competition (200Nm vs 190Nm (TC) and 179Nm(HA)) but only makes a small note that the TC & HA has 7 and 9 hp more than the 407 respectively. It highlights how the 407’s auto gearbox was software engineered by Porsche and features manual control. Let me tell you something, I used to go all giddy with these semi-auto boxes, but after a while, the novelty runs out. Except for a brief mention at the specs-sheet behind, there was no indication that the 407’s auto also happened to be a 4-speeder rather than the current industry standard of 5.

The little booklet was an entertaining read, and a cheeky dig at the aforementioned competitors. However, if those two cars are what I think they are (I can only guess, they’re being so ‘mysterious’ about it), I think they don’t belong in the same league as the 407. An interesting match-up would see the 407 pitted against the new Mazda6 2.0. Now, that’s a comparison I’d like to see.

407 goes against a couple of ‘mysterious’ competitors