Honda Amaze launch on April 11. Bookings Open!

That the Honda Amaze will be officially launched in India on April 11 is a well known fact. The Brio based sedan has been caught testing in India on numerous occasions and initial impressions are that the new sedan from Honda might very well become one of the top selling cars in the entry level sedan segment.

The Honda Amaze will become the cheapest sedan in Honda’s line up of cars in India and will lock horns with the high selling Maruti Suzuki Swift Dzire. It may be noted that Honda has been losing out to other carmakers in Indian car market because of the lack of diesel engine variants of its cars and this is looking all set to be changed with the advent of the new Amaze. The Amaze will be sold in India in both petrol and diesel engine variants and will become the first Honda car in India to have a diesel powerplant.

The Honda Amaze is basically a ‘booted’ version of the Brio hatchback and shares a fair bit with the smaller body variant. Helping the car with having increased comfort levels for the passengers is a slightly longer wheelbase and higher equipment levels. The Amaze looks identical to the Brio till B pillars after which it gets different rear doors, C-Pillars and of course, a boot. The designers at Honda have done a pretty decent job with seamlessly adding a boot to the Brio hatchback. On the inside, the car shares most of the panels with the hatchback sibling and only bits that would help with differentiating the car from its smaller body variant will be additional cubby holes and different colour shades.

Powering the petrol variant of the car will be the same 1.2 litre iVtec petrol motor that powers the Brio hatchback. For Amaze, the engine has been tuned to produce a max power output of 90PS, which makes the Amaze as powerful as any other petrol car in its segment. The diesel variant is powered by a 1.5 litre iDtec oil burner. This engine is said to have been developed alongside the much publicized 1.6 litre iDtec motor that powers the UK spec Civic and CRV. The 1.5 litre engine has a max power output of 100PS and a peak torque figure of 200Nm. This makes the car more powerful than not just the diesel variant of the high selling Dzire but also more powerful than diesel variants of some bigger cars (read: Fiat Linea, Maruti Suzuki SX4).The diesel engine is said to have an ARAI fuel economy figure of 25.8 kmpl !! It surely looks like Honda has a winner in its hands.

Honda Cars India’s website shows that the official bookings for the car have started and it’s only a matter of sometime before all the dealership of the carmaker start offering test drives of the new Amaze. The dealerships have already received the first batch of Honda Amaze and test drives should commence shortly.

The Amaze measures less than 4 metres in length and benefits from the excise duty relaxation that Govt. of India provides for cars less than 4 metres long. Hence, safely expect the Amaze to be priced really well and close to the Swift Dzire.