After making its Malaysian debut at four locations across the Klang Valley, the 2026 Honda City facelift will be heading to the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The tour of Terengganu, Kelantan and Pahang kicks off today, September 8.
Specifically, the City facelift will be at KTCC Mall in Kuala Terengganu today, before heading to Aeon Mall in Kota Bharu on September 11-12. The pre-launch roadshow will then head south to Pahang, visiting East Coast Mall in Kuantan on the 15th and Semantan Walk in Temerloh on the 16th. Mall hours for all, 10am to 10pm, so head to the locations to check out the refreshed B-segment sedan in the metal.
Unveiled in India in May before making its ASEAN debut in Thailand a month later, this is the second facelift for the fifth-generation City sedan, which arrived here in Malaysia in October 2020. A mild first facelift surfaced here in August 2023.
With this second facelift, the GN2 City is near unrecognisable from the front. It now has slimmer headlights (bi-LED projectors, as shown by the RS) as part of a slim ‘mask’, paired with new bumpers. The H mark sits on body colour above the grille and on the RS, there’s a light bar connecting the LED DRL brows.
The rear and sides look a lot more familiar, but the RS does get ‘albino’ style tail lamps. There’s also an aggressive new bumper, and the RS comes with plenty of black elements throughout, like the Civic RS. Finally, there are new turbine-style 16-inch alloys finished in two-tone. The tyres are Toyo Proxes R57 in 185/55.
Inside, the familiar GN2 dashboard’s trim on the RS is now a more textured silver finish with a red accent line, as opposed to full red. There’s also ambient lighting, but the most obvious new element is the new and larger 10-inch touchscreen head unit, which will be available from the V variant onwards.
The new screen comes with the 360-degree camera system that was added to the City earlier this year, and it has been updated with a multi-view angle and moving object detection interface. A switch on the tip of the left steering column stalk lets one cycle through the angles.
Elsewhere, the seat upholstery on the RS has been revised – the central ‘bar’ on the previous facelift’s front chairs has been deleted, and the reddish contrast perforation surface on the spine has been relocated to the sides – the seats look more simple now.
The e:HEV RS gets a new wireless mobile charger, but we noticed that the sports pedals are now two pieces instead of three, losing the alloy footrest.
Safety-wise, the City facelift will continue to have Honda Sensing as standard, setting it apart from national offerings where full ADAS is reserved for flagship variants. The driver assist suite includes autonomous emergency braking, adaptive cruise control with (e:HEV RS-exclusive) stop and go, lane centring assist, road departure mitigation, front departure alert and auto high beam.
New to the 2026 City is blind spot monitoring with rear cross traffic alert, and this works with the existing LaneWatch camera (still accessible from the right steering column stalk) to now provide alerts to the driver on both sides. So, you’ll get camera feed for the left side and a conventional blind spot monitor for the right side.
There are no mechanical changes. Petrol models will feature the familiar 1.5-litre DOHC i-VTEC four-cylinder offering 121 PS at 6,600 rpm and 145 Nm of torque at 4,300 rpm. The L15Z is paired with an Earth Dreams CVT.
The i-MMD system on the e:HEV hybrid is also unchanged. The system consists of a primary electric traction motor with 109 PS and 253 Nm providing drive through a single-speed transmission, with an Atkinson-cycle version of the 1.5L engine acting as a generator to recharge the battery. The ICE does clutch in to provide mechanical drive at higher running speeds.
Currently, the City is available in five variants (S, E, V, RS and hybrid e:HEV RS), but word is that the range will be trimmed to four. Since both RS petrol and e:HEV variants were shown at the Klang Valley pop-up previews, it’s likely that one of the petrol variants won’t make it.
No mentions of price yet, but for reference, the outgoing City starts from RM84,900 for the S grade, moving up to RM89,900 for the E and RM94,900 for the V. The petrol RS goes for RM99,900 while the e:HEV RS retails for RM111,900. The City Hatchback will only get this facelift later, by the way. Again, check the 2026 City facelift out this week if you’re in the East Coast – locations are above.
GALLERY: 2026 Honda City sedan facelift, petrol RS
GALLERY: 2026 Honda City sedan facelift, e:HEV RS
The post 2026 Honda City facelift preview heads to East Coast – Kuala Terengganu, Kota Bharu, Kuantan, Temerloh appeared first on Paul Tan’s Automotive News.
