It was a nice setting, a Saturday morning in Bengaluru’s weather and driving the pot filled roads. I reach Taj Vivanta not before being introduced midway to Karthik, a privateer rally driver. Very interesting exchanges on motorsports and entrepreneurship follows.
At the venue of Honda Hangout, get to meet those bloggers at arms and the Bloggers Mind team! And we settle after a nice breakfast! I could see cars lined up for the day.
The official itinerary had the normal stuff and we were led through a very long and interesting presentation on the Honda Amaze and how it came to be the car that it is today.
Also got to see a couple of nice Honda television commercials: Check this one!
The Honda Amaze is a greatly conceived car and has the Honda DNA and the Diesel version has the power and sensitivity to a great extent. This is a culmination of studies and insights from ground zero. In one of the answers the team said they had studied some 20 different road bumps to get to the right ride height. The space in the back seats also marks the importance of leg room and they have optimised the boot.
So we were all set, in groups of three people and a member Bloggers Mind. It happened that I was a part of the first car!
All set the first impressions were obvious ones, a grand looking car, nice front grill with trademark Honda Logo the lights were also clear and flowing with the lines, then there was the fog lamps.Oh these cars comes in beautiful colours too!
The back of the car was also very well styled. Looks pretty with the lights on! The chrome band adds to the look.
Look inside is a nice console, would have loved the music system and the AC panel flowing down rather than being two different sets. You will find three colours on the panel , its pretty sleek to an extent, and the plastic look actually makes it little cheap.
Otherwise the dual tone interiors are a delight to soak in. One serious stuff they missed is the BLUE TOOTH! Yes it doesn’t have blue tooth connectivity.
The steering is collapsible ie tiltable, has Airbags, has music controls at your fingertips, so you dont strech yourself in the city riding. On the other hand the seat has a height adjuster, so you know if you are not able to reach the clutch, you know what to do!
The wind shield is a special one with heat control, another amaze-ing feature if you can call it.
I must admit that noise control is par excellence, you would wonder if the car is on, well checked with revs to confirm it.
The ORVMs can be handled from inside and it also has a sporty feel to it with the indicator lights on.
So we were all set to drive and test it to the limits, yeah we mean that! 🙂
Before that let me add the cup holders were a delight it actually was able to hold real 2 bottles. The back seat also had bottle holders very amply spaced out.
A tidbit here: The product team actually collected over 200 bottles from the people at office to finalise the size of the holder.
So we hit the road!
The car was responding so well to the city roads!
Very comfortable in 2nd and 3rd gears too, pretty responsive steering and very close turning radius helps you navigate the city, the traffic the signals and the pot holes in abundance.
The verdict is out half way – very nice city car!
So we would be touching the high way to actually try going that extra distance and feel the car.
And here we tested it to limits, just look at the snap below! Its a manual setting in the camera, and i was able to take this shot on the highway, it felt like breeze no hangups and no pretence of being fast!
Pretty nice build I must say! But when I drove I was wondering if we needed an extra bit of power, may be its the light weight on the aluminium engine that makes you feel so! So far its been a great ride and Honda Amazes truly!
The engine is pretty powerful and makes for a great drive in city and also on the highway! A 1.5 L iDTEC gives a 100 ps power! Very peppy and responsive as already discussed.
The boot space is optimum, and you have a nice package from Honda! Altogether a great packaging for the Indian consumers and Amaze does the most important thing in fuel efficiency, we did clock over 18 Kmpl on the go and we had really taken it for a ride literally, while another team did make it at 22.4 kmpl! Thats the one big news you were waiting for. So you have a cool sedan and a nice mileage, did someone ask kitna deti hai? 😉
A very nice package value for money and you will love the Honda tag! Going by the waiting period you know they have done the rightest thing, and they are working overtime to reduce that to a half the time with a third shift at their facility.
A nice Honda Hangout with even the team coming from Product management and the marketing made it awesome, simple because they were all ears to the feedback, and that I would say would make all the difference.
Some offbeat shots below!
Thanks to Bloggers Mind for this wonderful opportunity! Had a great time and will cherish this experience forever. It was different social media experiment taking it offline 🙂 and discussing things online!
Senthilkumar Rajappan
The word CEO evokes a myriad of emotions for me, and there is pretty good reasons for the same. And when there’s a contest for IndiasmostlovedCEO, it makes for some real action both online and offline, to get the drift continue reading.
