Honda Jazz to make mid-2014 debut, with petrol and diesel offerings

July 5, 2013: The Honda Jazz (pictured) is slated to make its comeback to India sometime in mid-2014. The Jazz was always a great hatchback but was let down by its price tag and even a steep price cut didn’t help boost sales, forcing Honda Cars India to discontinue the model. However, with this new Jazz, Honda is looking to correct that. The new Jazz will come powered by the 1.5-litre i-DTEC ‘Earth Dreams’ diesel engine as well as a 1.2-litre petrol engine.

It maintains the basic quasi-MPV-hatch proportions of the earlier car. This time, the grille sports a more aggressive, almost Civic-like, headlamps and a sleeker grille as well. The new bumper is dominated by large air vents which add to the sporty appearance of the front, and on the side, there’s a prominent rising beltline, not on the previous car, which flows neatly into the new tail-lamps. The headlamps come with metallic inserts, which could possibly come with LEDs as well. And there are turn indicators on the wing mirrors as well. The Jazz has always come with a spacious and extremely practical cabin; there’s no change on this very attractive feature.

Honda will manufacture the car at its Tapukara plant, using a large amount of content locally to keep costs down. And since the Jazz shares its platform with the new City (due here in early 2014), it will definitely be more affordable than the earlier car. Honda doesn’t want to go and make that mistake again. Honda was rumoured to be losing money on the earlier Jazz, leading to fewer models being produced than demand for the car, which meant long waiting periods and unhappy customers. Another factor was the introduction of the Amaze compact saloon. Honda was sure it would get huge demand for the Amaze and needed to concentrate its available resources towards the new car.

The Jazz sold 6,619 units in 2012-13 with May 2012 seeing sales of 1,948 units, its highest in the year. When the new Jazz does make its debut in 2014, it will be interesting to see where Honda positions it. It is likely to be slotted between the Brio and the Amaze, which could possibly play in the Jazz’s favour.