Honda to launch EcoSport rivalling Brio based compact SUV in India

Honda-Amaze-1 (144)

Earlier today, we reported that the new Honda Vezel compact SUV, which was recently launched in Japan, isn’t coming to India. Honda feels that bringing the Vezel to India isn’t really feasible as the weakened Indian currency would lead to a stratospheric price tag that the car won’t really be able to justify. Also, localization isn’t really the answer as it would require a lot of time and really high investment to start produced Vezel’s components locally. 

However, all is not lost! In an interesting development, it has emerged that Honda is planning to come up with a Brio-based SUV for markets like that of India!

It may be noted that developing a compact SUV on the Brio’s platform will be a relatively inexpensive affair and hence, the manufacturer won’t have any troubles wit pricing the compact SUV competitively. The Brio’s platform is high on flexibility and Honda has previously stretched it to underpin the Amaze sedan and stretch it even further for Mobilio MPV. However, making this platform appropriate to underpin a compact SUV won’t exactly be an easy task. The car maker needs to redesign the wheel wells to accommodate larger wheels. One of Honda’s engineers admitted, “We’ll need to extensively modify the platform’s wheel well to accommodate the larger wheels required on an SUV and this isn’t an easy task.” However, this very comment reveals that Honda is very much ready to start working on the platform.

The upcoming Brio based compact SUV will take the fight straight to the Ford EcoSport and the likes and will further strengthen up Honda’s presence in India. However, the Brio-based compact SUV won’t be here before 2016.

via ACI

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top