The sportier Honda Mobilio RS model prepares to launch in Indonesia

Honda Motor’s Indonesian counterpart, Honda Prospect Motor (HPM) is reportedly bracing up to launch the Honda Mobilio RS very soon in the Indonesian car market. The Mobilio RS is a customized special model with a much sporty visual appeal. The Mobilio RS is primarily going to launch in Indonesia to lock its horns with and dampen the demands for the recently launched Suzuki Ertiga ‘Sporty’ variant. The Honda Mobilio has already outsold the very popular Suzuki Ertiga MOV in Indonesia and now, the RS variant is all set to fight it out with the Ertiga’s new Sporty model that Suzuki launched recently to boost its sales.

The sportier and more aggressive looking Honda RS variant comes with a lot of added external styling elements including a roof spoiler,  new exhaust finisher, a more stylish rear bumper along with a flashy chrome strip and it flaunts the special ‘RS’ logo at the rear. Earlier spy pictures of the Mobilio RS have also revealed the vehicle to boast of a new stylized a twin-slat chrome front grille, redesigned headlights along with new LED elements, side skirting, newly designed alloy wheels and also a new stylized front bumper for the top-end variant.

The RS variant of the Mobilio is meant to endow the regular MPV with sportier looks with stylized cosmetic additions. Thus, under the hood the car remains essentially the very same with everything untouched. Apart from the exterior styling updates, the Mobilio RS will not offer any mechanical upgrades or tweaks. It will be powered by the same 1.5 liter 4-cylinder i-VTEC petrol engine. The engine is mated to an efficient 5 speed manual gearbox or a CVT automatic transmission gearbox.

The sportier Honda Mobilio RS variant is expected to be tagged at around 27 million Rupiah (equivalent to Rs. 1.44 lakhs) more than the existing range topping model trim of the regular Mobilio. As per the reports from some Indonesian journals, the manual version of the Mobilio RS could cost 214 million Rupiah (Rs. 11.44 lakhs), while the automatic version may be priced at 225 million Rupiah (Rs. 12.03 lakhs). The Indonesian car market received the Honda Mobilio MPV in January this year.

For the Indian car market, Honda Cars India is still preparing to launch the Mobilio MPV in July. Though in Indonesia the MPV is offered in only the petrol version, for the diesel loving Indian car market the Mobilio will be arriving with both its petrol and diesel versions. The diesel version of the Mobilio will be powered by the highly acclaimed Honda 1.5 liter i-DTEC engine that is capable of producing a max power of 100PS and a peak torque of 200Nm. The petrol avatar of the Mobilio will pack in the same petrol engine that does the duty under the City’s hood, namely the 1.5 liter i-VTEC petrol mill that churns out 119PS of power and 145Nm of torque. The Mobilio RS has no chance of arriving India, at least for now.