Honda Malaysia's Sports-Concept 'Honda-Mugen City' Close-Up !

Recipe for a Honda-Mugen City

Take one stock GD8 Honda City and add or replace :
- Mugen Bonnet Molding Cover
- Mugen Front Under Spoiler
- Mugen Side Spoiler
- Mugen Rear Under Spoiler
- Mugen Ventilated Visor
- Mugen Sports Silencer
- Mugen Sports Pedal
- Mugen Oil Filler Cap
- Mugen MF10L Forged Wheel (15")
- Mugen Wheel Nuts & Lock Set
- Trunk Spoiler
- Bridgestone Potenza S-03 (195/50R15)
- Eibach Pro-Kit
- Full Leather Upholstery

I made a special trip to the 1 Utama shopping mall over the Formula-1 weekend to do a photo-shoot of Honda Malaysia's Sports-Concept 'Honda-Mugen City'. As is typical of their usual great courtesy, one of Honda Malaysia's marketing staff met me there in order to explain the finer details of their project to me. One thing that really amazed was that the Honda Malaysia people actually had a very short time to put together this car as the project was only conceived barely weeks before the F1 Roadshow. In the end, it took them a little more than 2 weeks to get the car ready, eventhough missing the first 2 roadshows in Johor Bahru and the Sunway Pyramid shopping mall, but still making it just in time for the final F1 Roadshow at the 1 Utama shopping mall.

For those who are unable to make the trip to check out the car up-close then, and even for those who did make the trip, I hope this special presentation of the Honda-Mugen City will give you a special appreciation of the attention and effort that Honda Malaysia made in putting this car together. Stay tuned, for up next would be my test-drive review of the car !

The modifications to make up the Honda-Mugen City are listed on the table on the right. 'A picture paints a thousand words' and so goes the saying. But I think complementing the photos with narratives when appropriate will tell an even better story. So I will augment the photos below with my own observations as well as the explanations from Honda Malaysia where appropriate. Enjoy !

Note : for each photo, click on it to download the SVGA sized main photo. I need to warn readers that the average size of each SVGA main photo exceeds 100k each though.

The Looks

Presented here are various angles of the 'Honda-Mugen City' showing off its new more substantial and more sporty looks.

Feature photo :

The photo above is perhaps the most important one, a shot of what is argueably the 'uglist' angle of the City. The Mugen treatment helps to 'beautify' it.

Close-up looks at the components of the original Mugen bodykit : the front & rear lip ('under spoilers'), the side skirt, and bonnet 'molding cover'. The molding cover fits over the chrome fitting on top of the front grille. The original City grill is used instead of the Mugen grill in order to retain the identify of the car as a Honda Sports-Concept.

The Mugen bodykit is made of relatively thin but tough vacumn-formed plastic. As would be expected from Mugen, fitment of the bodykit does not involve any drilling or cutting into the car's body. Additional thoughtful features include colour-matched dark-grey/black rubber strips to seal the gap between the bodykit and the car body. The front lip actually has special mouldings which can be coverted into inlets for brake cooling ducts !

Performance Enhancements

The Honda-Mugen City is fitted with a Mugen muffler complete with a brushed stainless steel tail-pipe. This is a complete muffler replacement that hooks up to the end of the exhaust mid-section. The diameter of the tail-pipe is 89.1mm.

The prized Mugen MF-10L rims used with 195/60/15 Bridgestone Potenza SO-3s. The 'L' suffix for the rims signifies 'Lightened' and the rims are supposed to be one of the lightest alloys around outside of magnesium rims.

Eibach Pro-Kits are fitted to the stock absorbers to give the car a lowered look and to improve handling as well. The Pro-Kits are Honda Jazz/Fit items but according to Honda Malaysia, they were told by Eibach they will work fine with the City as well.

The Interior


The Honda-Mugen City features a full leathered interior. Natural leather, biege in colour and in an embossed 'waffle design' pattern is used to replace all the fabric sections in the interior. I asked about the rationale for retaining the controversial beige colour for the leather. Apparently Honda Malaysia tried using a dark-brown colour similar to the dashboard but they feel it doesn't match well with the rest of the interior so they decided to go with beige.

Accessories


No concept cars will be complete without the proper accessories. The Honda-Mugen City is fitted with the following accessories : Mugen aluminium pedals (brake and throttle pedal) original Mugen oil filler cap Mugen wheel nuts and lock-set The lock-set is needed to prevent those much sought after MF10Ls from being stolen. The Mugen rims does not come with a center cap. Indeed it doesn't even come with a groove to allow fitment of a center cap (not even the stock ones). So Honda Malaysia had the exposed hub center sprayed black in colour to match the Mugen nuts & lock set. A good attention to detail by the Honda Malaysia team here.

Rear Boot/Trunk Spoiler

The rear boot/trunk spoiler is a non Mugen item, made locally. Mugen actually don't have a boot/trunk spoiler for the Fit-Aria/City in its catalogue ! The spoiler features the third brake light which is mandatory by law in Malaysia and bolts to the boot/trunk lid at both ends using philips screws.

This spoiler is moulded from lightweight plastic, not fibreglass, and great attention was paid to dimensional accuracy - that the spoiler fits nicely to the lid - as well as production quality - no waves, ripples or surface imperfections are noticeable. One thing about having a project car in black - any defects will be very clearly obvious !

The stock City doesn't come with a boot/trunk spoiler so adding one will increase the total weight of the lid, making it heavier and harder to lift. Honda Malaysia had custom-made, larger diameter replacement torsion bars for the lid which counters the extra weight of the spoiler. These new torsion bars are so strong that even with the spoiler on, the lid will pop up when the release lever is pulled.

Further attention to fine details includes the provision of proper wiring - insulated wiring extension with the correct socket to plug into the existing harness on the right hand side tail-light and foam and cable ties to hold the extension in place.

The Mugen door visors are special aerodynamic designs, to promote smoother air-flow over them. An unusual feature are the seals for the front doors that contacts the window glass and seals off the bottom of the visor. Both front and rear visor are designed as a pair to complement the aerodynamic air-flow over them as a set. Of course the 'Mugen' logo is moulded onto the visor.

Main fitment is via strong double sided tape which seals the visor solidly to the door frame eliminating any gaps. There are also two extra mount brackets, one of which can just be seen in the photo on the left which clips into the window frame and additionally helps secure the visors solidly to the door.