The new facelift of the Honda Brio has been showcased at the Indonesia Motor Show this year. There are quite a few changes made to the Brio in this mid-life facelift. The changes mainly involve cosmetic changes but some conspicuous tweaks are made to the engine and other features as well.
The Indonesian-spec Brio is called the Brio Satya. The facelift of the car seems to be inspired by the Honda Amaze. Many exterior features are similar to that of the 2016 Amaze. The front fascia gets most of the cosmetic changes. The front profile is made more aggressive with a large black plastic grille with dual-slats. The radiator intake and faux intakes are larger. The fog lamps are placed on the faux intake. The Honda logo is embedded boldly on the grille. The rear profile remains the same, with an added chrome bar as an attempt to make it look slightly different.
The interiors of the new facelift include changes inspired by the BR-V concept. The dashboard is similar to that of the BR-V and the Amaze facelift. With some silver accents, the new dashboard looks way more sophisticated than the plastic-like cheap looking dash of the predecessor. The new dashboard is matte.
The steering wheel design is not much different, but there is a new one-pod instrument cluster, a double DIN JVC stereo system. The HVAC system has been revised with new controls and a digital display unit.
The engine of the car is not being changed. It is the same old 1.2 liter i-VTEC engine with the 4-cylinder setting. The engine has however been tuned to produce 90PS power and 110Nm torque, compared to the 88PS and 109Nm of the outgoing model. Though this isn’t really a very conspicuous change, it has been undone with what seems like a mistake. The 5-speed AT option has been ditched for an Earth Dreams Tech CVT option. The 5-speed MT remains the standard transmission system.
The car is likely to reach the Indian market by the end of this year. Here, it will compete the Chevrolet Beat, the Maruti Suzuki Ritz, and tougher rivals like the Maruti Suzuki Celerio, the Hyundai i10 series and the Hyundai Eon.
The car is being sold in the Indonesian market at an Indian equivalent of around INR 6.6 lac. In the Indian market, all variants of the car can be expected to come in the INR 4.0 lac to INR 6.0 lac range, considering the aggressive pricing of all the rivals.
The recently launched Tiago hatchback from Toyota has a price range of INR 3.2 lac to INR 5.5 lac. If the Brio facelift is to do well in the Indian market, it needs aggressive pricing, because the Eon and the Tiago already offer the best of specs.
Until the Brio facelift reaches Indian shores, the Indonesian market can be observed to gauge the performance of the car in those parts. However, for the Indian market, it will be a totally different story altogether.
This post was written by
I have been writing content for auto blogs for quite a long time now. My passion lies in this field and I love to picture cars as well.
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