BRIO is Honda's new small car for India

Honda has brought to life a near production prototype of its B-Segment car for the emerging markets of Thailand and India at the Thailand International Motor Expo 2010. Our Editor-in-Chief Adil Jal Darukhanawala took a closer look at the car Honda is now calling-The BRIO

Near eleven months to the day Honda showed the mockup of its Project 2CV at this year's Auto Expo, it took the wraps of the near production prototype of this B-segment car for the emerging car markets of Thailand and India at the Thailand International Motor Expo 2010. The car now has a name - Brio - and on hand to do the honours was none other than Honda Motor's President and CEO Takenobu Ito who were succinctly informed that lightweight, fine dynamics, good packaging and a very rewarding drive would be key attributes for this car which would also sport a very competitive price tag.

Brio in the literal sense of the word stands for a youthful and energetic persona and as we could make out from the form and the proportions, this Honda sure is a racy little number which has its work cut out though on many fronts. The car employs the Japanese firm's oft-quoted and well executed "man maximum, machine minimum" design concept but this time taken to the limit given its overall compact dimensions. In fact just as Toyota has delighted with its Etios, it is the cabin area to the overall proportions that truly signifies how well the Honda designers and the packaging engineers have plied their craft to make a cabin feel most comfortable for five full grown adults.

The Brio project was on even before Honda launched the Jazz in India but it truly got even more impetus when the high price positioning of the Jazz meant sales were sluggish. The Brio is very important therefore in this critical aspect of Honda getting large numbers where it matters - out on the roads. And in a segment awash with great cars at every price point delivering strong value, Honda will be marked out for how well it positions the Brio.

The design of the Brio is racy and very youthful with a fun to drive cheeky exterior without being cheesy. At the Thailand International Motor Expo it was turned out in shiny metallic green and this was to signify its link to the Thailand Eco-car project which calls for small cars (irrespective of cubic capacity) to meet a minimum fuel efficiency target of 20kmpl in their own driving cycle. What Honda has therefore done for Thailand is to make a specifically lighter car than its Indian counterpart and while this won’t be substantially lighter it would of course set the very same design and production ethos for the made in India version as well. Given that low CO2 and high fuel efficiency remain critical aspects for automakers in their move forward, the lightweight allied to the all new version of the 1.2-litre i-VTEC engine will make for a car which will deliver big, claim the Honda engineers across the board from Japan, Thailand and India.