Honda has officially announced that their new sedan based on the Brio platform will be called the Amaze. Asian Honda Motor Co. Ltd confirmed that the new model is strategic for Asia and will be launched in Thailand and India soon. The Amaze will be launched in India in financial year 2013-14 and will be the first Honda vehicle in India to have diesel engine.
The Amaze will be a sub-four meter sedan in India, competing with models like Maruti Suzuki Dzire, Toyota Etios, Tata Indigo CS and soon-to-be-launched Mahindra Verito CS. The petrol engine for the sedan is expected to be the same 1.2-litre i-Vtec from the Jazz and the Brio, to avail tax benefits. It might have lightly better power ratings.
The diesel engine for the Amaze will be based on the 1.6-litre Earth Dreams unit that powers the Honda Civic in Europe. The cubic capacity will be reduced to 1.5-litres – once again to avail tax benefits as per Indian regulations. The sedan will share most of its components with the Brio hatchback and will be localised to keep check on the prices. We expect the the sedan to be in the price range of Rs 5.5 lakh to Rs 8 lakh. The same diesel engine will later also power the new versions of the Brio, Jazz and the City sedan.
The details of the Amaze will be announced in Thailand on November 23. Stay tuned as we bring you more details of this first Honda diesel car for India.
