Honda Amaze vs Tata Zest – Which one amazes you?

Honda Amaze was launched last year by the Japanese manufacturer and it received tremendous response. The sedan is based on the Brio hatchback and shares a large number of components with it. This car came in with an all new diesel engine which worked wonders for its sales. The petrol variant shares the engine with the hatchback counterpart like many other components. Now it has been challenged by the latest entry in the segment. This new entrant comes from the Indian manufacturer Tata Motors and is called the Zest. This car was showcased earlier this year at the Auto Expo and comes with quite an impressive list of features.

The new Zest is a compact sedan that measures less than four meters and targets the buyers upgrading from a hatchback just like most other vehicles in the segment. The other vehicles in this segment facing these two are the Dzire from Maruti Suzuki and Xcent from Hyundai. Tata has worked really hard on this new product and it does show. It comes at a very competitive price and offers a lot of features for the price. We took a closer look at how the Tata Zest fares up against the Honda Amaze.

The Zest comes with a fresh design although there are some elements that they have retained to keep the character. The front gets projector lamps and daytime running lamps. While the design is nice, it looks more like a notchback rather than a proper sedan. One the other hand, the Amaze, despite being based on a hatchback, looks more like a proper sedan. The side profile of Amaze has got a nice waistline slanting nicely towards the front. But the Zest comes with stylish wheel and a really nice set of tail lamps which definitely looks nice.

Inside the Zest doesn’t feel like a Tata at all. It has got a dual tone dashboard and very thoughtfully laid out dashboard. The fit and finish is at par with rivals. It easily makes the insides of Amaze look boring. While it is a new dashboard with touchscreen infotainment made by Harman and automatic climate control, they have carried some controls from older models which feel out of place. The Honda Amaze gets a simple dashboard which is the same as on Brio. While it looks simple, the fit and finish is typically Honda.

The Honda Amaze comes with impressive engines. The diesel engine is the 1.5 litre i-DTEC engine which generates a peak power of 100 bhp. It pulls strongly from low rpms and offers excellent fuel efficiency. However it isn’t very quiet and the noise makes it to the cabin. The diesel engine on Zest is the popular Quadrajet diesel engine in its 90 bhp avatar (75 bhp on lowest trim). It also comes with an optional AMT on the XMA trim. The petrol engines of both the cars offer almost the same amount of peak power but the Zest has got a turbocharged engine which gives it better low end torque. It also offers different driving modes which allow the driver to switch ECU maps on the go. Zest is definitely a worthy competition to the Amaze and makes a lot of sense if you are looking for an automatic option.