Honda in Brazil has started selling the City, a stretched wheelbase version of the Fit (Jazz in other markets).
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The car is made locally at the Honda manufacturing unit in Sumaré (60 miles of São Paulo City), which was inaugurated in October of 1997 with Civic production. The Fit is also made there.
With the addition of the City to the range, Honda is hoping to consolidate fifth position in the Brazilian car market.
In 12 years, Honda has invested nearly US$800m in Brazilian manufacturing and has produced 700,000 cars to date, It employs some 3,500 workers and Sumaré capacity is 150,000 units pa.
Original plans to make the City at the firm’s planned new Buenos Aires plant were derailed by the impact of the international financial crisis on Argentina’s economy.
In January this year Honda halted plant construction at Buenos Aires and announced that the new compact sedan would be made in Sumaré.
Officially there is no forecast on when the Buenos Aires project will resume. According to sources linked to the automaker, the market in Argentina needs to recover.
Honda says it will produce some 4,000 City units monthly, of which 90% will be sold domestically. Future exports are planned for Argentina and Mexico.
Brazil is the eighth country in which the Honda the City is built.
The City comes with a 1.5-litre/114-hp flexible-fuel engine.
Fernando Calmon
