Honda Cars India has pulled up its sock to launch a slew of cars in India in coming 3 years. To be more precise, Honda Cars India will launch 8 new cars till 2015 which is an aggressive plan and some of thee most important launches will be the Honda Amaze Diesel, Honda City Diesel and Honda Jazz Diesel which hit Indian roads starting next year(2013). Recently, Honda flew some of our media friends from Indian and Malaysia to Japan to test their final production version of the Honda Amaze Diesel– which is a Honda Brio based diesel sedan for Asian counties which have good demand for entry level sedans.
Recently Honda announced that they will launch the Amaze in Thailand in November 2012, which is just few days from the time I am writing this article. In this article, we share all the details which have been revealed by Honda about the Honda Amaze along with the driving characteristics and performance of the Honda Amaze Diesel.
Starting with the diesel engine of the Honda Amaze, it is a 1.5 litre i-DTEC engine which is derived from downscaling the displacement of the 1.6 Litre i-DTEC CRDI Diesel engine by Honda. The power delivered by this engine will be around 80 BHP and max torque close to 200 Nm, the detailed specifications will be revealed only around the launch. Technically, the engine is quite advanced with a twin-cam and 4 valve per cylinder count for easy breathing and high fuel economy of the car. It is expected that the Amaze will deliver between 20 to 25 KMPL of mileage per litre of diesel.
Talking about the engine performance, the car feels quite responsive at as low as 1000 ROM levels with the turbo kicking in around 1500 RPM and the torque does feel quite good till 3000 RPM. The state of engine tuning seems quite apt for city drives where its mostly stop and go traffic with lots of low engine speed conditions.
The transmission fitted on the Amaze is a 5 speed manual gearbox which is quite slick and shifts well. The gear ratios are well spaced and the clutch operation is light giving it a nice match for the responsive engine. The steering has more weight compared to Brio, which is good for higher speed stability and drivability. The interiors are same as that used in Brio with some more cushioning added to the rear seats.
The interiors have good cushioning with the interior space being larger than the Brio as the wheelbase of the Amaze is more than Brio by 60mm. This increase in wheelbase makes the car more spacious on the inside. The cabin is more roomy when compared to Maruti Swift Dzire, which is the strongest selling car in this segment. Also the boot space is more than the Dzire compact sedan. Aesthetically also, the boot seems much well integrated with the car as it does not end unexpectedly. It merges nicely with the bodylines of the car.
Just like Maruti has kept a slightly different grille on the new Dzire to identify it easily from the new Swift, Amaze has a double chrome stripes on the front grill which makes the fascia look different from that of Brio. It will be an interesting battle between the Honda Amaze and Maruti Dzire in the coming months. Also Mahindra is readying its Verito compact sedan which will claim some share in this segment. Stay tuned to Car Blog India for more updates.
source – Pualtan & Autocar India
