Ford Ecosport vs Honda City

What's the difference?

We live in a strange time, where cars are going the way of the dinosaur and SUVs will take their place as the primary offerings of the worlds oldest and biggest car companies.

Look at Ford, the brand that literally wrote the book on automotive mass-production will soon no longer sell cars in its home market of America (apart from the Mustang, of course…) There’s a story your grandpa won’t believe.

It makes SUVs, especially small ones like the EcoSport all the more important. Customers who once would have considered the Fiesta small hatch (on which the EcoSport is based) would now rather hop into one of these. At least, that’s what the data says.

So, is the EcoSport a worthy successor to the hatchback mantle? Is it even economical or sporty? And what happened to the spare wheel on the rear door? Read on to find out.

Honda built its four-wheeled automotive empire on the back of small cars, flying in the face of 1970s convention that bigger was better. As the ubiquitous Civic grew larger and larger, a niche for a smaller car appeared, and that niche was subsequently filled by the City in sedan guise, and the Jazz hatch that sits alongside it.

The buying public, however, is simply not as interested as it once was in small hatches and sedans, and Honda, along with other importers, is feeling the pinch when it comes to slumping sales for its smaller models.

But are we all missing out on something here? After all, the Thai-built City is priced from a rock-bottom $15,990 in base manual form – which is not a lot of money for a Honda.

We’re trying the range-topping, $21,590 VTi-L to see what we may have been missing.