If the Alto is India’s favorite hatchback, then the Toyota Innova is India’s beloved MPV. The Toyota baby has captured the Indian psyche like no other MPV. Extraordinarily, it has managed to sell in both commercial and personally owned segments without loosing the charm to either one of them.
Many companies have tried their luck in this segment but only M&M has managed make a dent in its sales with the Xylo that too only mildly. Since 2005 when it was launched, the Innova has always outsold its competitors by a fairly large margin.
As they say, ‘in order to cut a diamond, one needs a diamond’, similarly in order to take down a Japanese, one needs a Japanese. The Japanese, this time in question, is Honda and the car (or rather MPV) in question is the Jazz Shuttle.
Honda has just released teaser images of their new small MPV – the Jazz Shuttle based on the Jazz platform. Essentially, what they have done is taken a Jazz (or a Honda Fit as some would prefer), put it on a high-fat diet and the result is obvious. Although Honda calls it an MPV, its more station wagon because it only has a 2 row seating arrangement.
Astonishingly, the Jazz MPV looks quite good. It’s like the Jazz was always meant to be an MPV ;)
The front bumper has been given a minor treatment to make it look more butch.
The rear LEDs are taken from the current international Jazz
On the engine front, the current 1.2L has been been replaced with a 1.5L Vtec engine. Honda has also confirmed about a 1.3L hybrid model.
In order to create more interior and luggage space in a compact body, the Fit Shuttle has a center-tank layout arrangement
The interiors haven’t been fiddled with a lot. But that’s not a bad thing because the Jazz does have fantastic interiors in the first place.
With just 3 modifications, this can easily be an good alternative to the self-driven Innova buyer:
- A diesel heart.
- Competitively priced
Here is the BIG question. If Honda accepts these two suggestions, would you buy one?
Source - Autoblog.it
