Honda is a name very familiar to the car buyers across the world, and especially in India. The Japanese car giant is known to provide the customers with highly reliable cars that make driving a pleasurable experience. They had a strong presence in India, and the Honda Cars like City and Civic were doing good business here. However, with the launch of many other cars, especially in the SUV and compact sedan segment, the demand for Honda cars were taken a beating. For the first time in its history, the Honda City lost its top spot in the sedan segment to arch rival Hyundai. Honda was expected to bring in some revolutionary changes to remain on top.
That is exactly what they did! No sooner than Honda introduced a new car named Amaze in India, things started working in its favour. Amaze was special for two main reasons. Firstly, it was the first compact sedan from Honda. Until then, Honda was a serious player only in the A4 and A5 segments. However, with the Amaze, Honda forayed into the A3 segment. More importantly, the Amaze carried a diesel engine under its hood – another first for Honda. http://autoportal.com/newcars/honda/amaze/
Until the Amaze came along, Honda did not have a diesel car in its fleet. However, it was the growing demand for the diesel vehicles that prompted Honda to launch a diesel car of its own. What happened next was unprecedented. The car started selling like hot cakes and soon the carmaker had to expand the production capacities to meet the surging demand. While the Amaze went on to become the segment topper, it also showed Honda the way to revive the prospects of Honda City. As a result, a diesel version of the City was also released soon, which helped both the car and its company to gather some lost ground.
The Honda Amaze comes in both petrol and diesel versions. The petrol mill is the same one features in the Brio hatchback – a 1.2-liter four-cylinder i-vtec motor capable of developing 88 PS of power and 109 Nm of torque. On the other hand, the diesel engine is a 1.5-liter four-cylinder, i-dtec diesel engine generating 100 PS of power and 200 Nm torque. Both variants are mated with a five-speed manual transmission gearbox. In addition to this, the petrol version also offers an automatic version.
The diesel engine of the Honda Amaze is one of the lightest engine around. It returns a best in class mileage of more than 25 kmpl. Available for a price range of 4.99 to 7.55 lakh rupees, the Honda Amaze finds stiff competition from the likes of Maruti Swift Dzire, Hyundai Xcent and Tata Zest among others.