The turbocharged Honda City RS is already available in several Asian countries like Thailand and Malaysia. And while we’re still waiting here in the Philippines, MyHondaTV, Honda Malaysia released a rather cheeky advertisement for the newest version of the Honda made subcompact car.
Check it out:
MyHondaTV. Rewrite the rules.
As you can see from the video, Honda compares the City RS to the Toyota Vios, and strangely enough, with the Toyota Camry, which as you know, belongs to another segment. Back to the ad, it highlights the Honda City RS’s abilities to lay down the power. As per the video above, Honda is claiming that it’s better than the other models shown in terms of climbing inclines, overtaking, and building up speed even when fully loaded with passengers.
We also didn't account for max torque, wheel-size, aerodynamics, and many other factors.
To check up on the veracity of this ad though, let us compare these three sedans in terms of the maximum horsepower and torque that they can make.
|
Honda City RS Turbo
|
Toyota Camry
|
Toyota Vios 1.5
|
Peak Horsepower (HP)
|
119
|
183
|
106
|
Peak Torque (Nm)
|
173
|
231
|
140
|
Curb Weight
|
1,165 kg
|
1,545 kg
|
1,060 kg
|
With the figures above, we can obviously see that the Toyota Camry has the most torque and horsepower, and the Vios has the least. If we went deeper into this analysis of ours, we calculated that the Camry has 0.12 horsepower per kg, the Vios has 0.1, and the City RS Turbo has 0.1.
This of course means that the subcompact sedans actually have about the same power to weight ratio, with the Vios’ relatively lighter curb weight compensating for its lack of horsepower. And obviously, the Camry, despite its significantly heavier weight, still has more horsepower per kilogram.
Before you keyboard warriors do your usual thing, do note that we’ve only taken into account the vehicle’s gross weight. This means that there might also be other factors that might affect actual real-world performance like the amount of cargo a car is carrying and the weight of the passengers riding the cars in question.
>>> Related: 2021 Toyota Camry: Expectations and what we know so far
We want a more accurate comparison, but we'll have to wait for the City RS Turbo to get here
Also, note that we used the output figures for the Vios 1.5 since the City RS Turbo is also the top-of-the-line variant of the Honda City. As such, we can safely say that our analysis is just scratching the surface. We’ll have to get our hands on the City RS Turbo and test it out in real-world conditions against the Toyota Vios 1.5, as well as the Toyota Camry to find out if Honda’s advertisement is accurate.
Regardless of this, the Honda City RS Turbo is an exciting looking sedan, which offers a lot with its sporty exterior. We cannot wait to get our hands on it, and once it gets here to the Philippines, we’ll let you know.
For more automotive industry updates, keep reading here on Philkotse.com.
Know more about Honda City

The entry of Honda Cars Philippines Inc. to the subcompact sedan segment is the City. Now on its fifth-generation model, the City comes with a sleeker exterior design along with a revamped interior and an updated in-cabin features. From the looks of it, this vehicle looks well suited to go up against its rivals in the subcompact sedan segment. The exterior of the Honda City looks sleeker and sportier as compared to the outgoing model. The front end of this subcompact sedan shares a bit of similarity to its bigger sibling, the current Honda Civic. All variants of the new City look identical to one another except for the RS trim. The front end of the City RS comes with full LED headlights, LED fog lamps, a more prominent fog light garnish, a glossy black mesh grille, and a sporty bumper. On the other hand, the non-RS City variants also come with a striking facia but it doesn’t have fog lamps. Moreover, non-RS trims are integrated with halogen projector headlamps. Inside, the new Honda City has a dark cabin theme and it has a restyled dashboard layout. Honda redesigned the City’s aircon vents as well as the climate control buttons. Almost all of the variants of this subcompact sedan is integrated with an 8-inch infotainment system that has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility. Honda Philippines is offering the City on four variants: RS CVT, V CVT, S CVT, and S MT. All variants of the new City comes with a 1.5-liter four-cylinder i-VTEC gasoline engine. The said power unit generates 119 hp and 145 Nm of torque. In addition, all Honda City comes with a continuously variable transmission except for the entry-level S variant that has a six-speed manual gearbox.
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