Honda Amaze facelift to be launched in India on March 3

Honda will launch the facelifted version of the Amaze for the Indian market on March 3. The vehicle gets a few cosmetic changes to the exterior and interior to add some spunk to compact sedan whose sales are slowly dying down.

The spyshot shows the updated chrome grille and the new sporty bumper with trapezoidal housing for fog lamps. The overall design language is the same and the pattern for the alloy wheels hasn't changed either. We can expect the rear bumper to be restyled a bit with different tail lamps on offer. Inside the cabin, apart from the touch screen audio system with navigation from the Mobilio that Honda added last year, this year we can expect the dashboard layout to be changed, similar to the one in the Mobilio for the Indonesian market.

The powertains are expected to be the same with the petrol version of the Amaze powered by the 88bhp 1.2-litre i-VTEC engine and the oil-burner by the 100bhp 1.5-litre four-cylinder i-DTEC diesel engine. Transmission options include the five-speed manual gearbox or five-speed automatic, with a CNG variant only in the manual trim.

The Amaze was first launched in India in April 2013 and was the first Honda car to be launched with a diesel engine. It is a compact sedan based on the Brio hatchback's platform and has tasted a fair bit of success in the Indian market. The facelifted version with new updates should add an appeal to the entire package as we don't expect Honda to increase the price of the car by a substantial amount. It would be nice to see if airbags and ABS are offered as standard or even as an option from the base variant.