If you judge a book by its cover, then you’re going
to be mighty surprised with the Honda Amaze. Read on for the inside story on
Honda’s compact sedan
‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’, goes the
old adage, and if I wished to apply that to a car, then I would pick the Honda
Amaze without the slightest hesitation. Book? Cover? Car? Amaze-d? Intended pun
aside, this three-box from Honda does have a surprise waiting for its owner in
the form of a spacious interior. We re-discovered this much to our delight on
yet another long road trip as the Amaze headed back to Karwar with a full
complement of passengers and their luggage over a weekend.
The
Honda Amaze has been made specifically for the Asian market, specially India,
as demand for compact sedans is very high
You see, at 3,990 millimetres long, the
Amaze is a full centimetre under the four-metre threshold of the Indian
government and, therefore, benefits of tax sops. It’s just over 1.5 metres
wide, which, frankly, is not much. The point I’m trying to make is that there
can be absolutely no doubt that the Amaze is quite a compact vehicle so far as
exterior dimensions go. As a result, things like driving through crowded city
roads or even narrow alleyways, and parking in tight spots are far easier to
deal with than in a bigger car. Unfortunately, there’s a price to pay for every
good thing on our planet and the usual price one pays for the joys of easy
driving and parking is inevitably the space within the cabin.
The
dashboard is exactly similar to the Brio’s. Its pushed into the A-Pillars for
excellent knee room
I mean, you can’t have your cake and eat it
too, can you? If the exterior of your car is restricted, then the engineering
geeks at R&D departments of manufacturers can only do so much. Not so with
the Amaze, though. Open those wide opening doors, seat yourself anywhere in the
car, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the Honda’s roominess. That irrespective
of whether you’re in the front seat or the back.
Up front there’s enough leg-room for both
the driver and the passenger. The seats too are relatively wide and
comfortable. While shoulder-room is par for the course, there’s definitely a
bit of extra headroom for the tall fellow among us as well. Move to the back
and the story repeats itself. There is enough space for three adults to sit
quite comfortably and if you have two adults and a child, then you’re totally
sorted for your journey. Admittedly, the back feels a less roomy than the
front, but that’s normal for all sedans in this class. Part of it is also the
result of a rising shoulder-line wherein the sill of the rear window is higher
than the front window sills.
The
front seats are very supportive despite being thin and sporting a single piece
design. Head room is generous as well
Speaking of windows, the engineers at
Honda’s R&D department have paid enough attention to passenger comfort and
have endowed the Amaze with fairly large windows, both up front and at the
back. As a result, there is no feeling of being constricted in a small space
when you’re inside the Amaze’s cabin. Further feel of roominess is added thanks
to the company’s use of beige as the primary colour theme of its dual-tone interior
instead of a darker colour. The choice of colour further adds to the Amaze’s
feeling of in-cabin space. All of these merge with each other fluently to
ensure that even on a long 1,800+ km journey from Pune to Karwar and back none
of the passengers complained of feeling cramped or uncomfortable.
The
Amaze’s boot is generous for the size of the car itself
The road trip also helped us appreciate
this car’s big boot. Despite its compact exterior, Honda have not only managed
to release enough in-cabin space for passengers, but have also managed to
extract a decent-sized boot for their luggage requirements. So we could fit in
four bags quite comfortably. The fact that the tail-gate opens up quite wide
and the car has a low loading lip only helped matters with the bags that were
heavier than expected.
As for the rest, the car continues to run
flawlessly. The 1.5-litre four-cylinder iDTEC diesel engine continues to
surprise with its smooth running and great fuel economy. In fact, on this trip
to Karwar (our second in the Honda Amaze since its arrival) we managed to
better our previous fuel economy figure of 20.5km/l to apart 20.9km/l.
The
Amaze gets class-leading rear seat space. The center arm rest is useful
Apart from the highway run too the Amaze
has continued to surprise us with its high fuel efficiency. Now, my daily
commute to work and back home has me driving through some pretty heavy traffic,
most of it stop-and-go, from one end of Pune to the other. Now most of us are
well aware of the negative effects such driving has on fuel efficiency figures.
Needless to say, I was quite keen to see how the Amaze fared in such a
scenario.
I am happy to say that the Honda has again
come out with flying colours returning an average of over 16.5km/l despite not
being able to shift the car out of second gear for kilometres on end every now
and then. Not to mention constant use of clutch and brake, which usually dents
fuel economy quite badly. So on fuel economy the Amaze deserves applause. Watch
this space for more on life with the Honda Amaze.
