DETROIT MOTOR SHOW: Honda Jazz premiere
Third-generation of Honda's light hatch due here before year's endHonda’s third-generation Jazz has made its debut at the Detroit Motor Show, offering increased performance, better efficiency and an all-new chassis architecture promising more interior room.
Dubbed the “Fit” in the US, the Jazz has long been one of Honda Australia’s mainstays, though it stumbled badly in 2013, dropping 37 percent of its 2012 sales to find less than 6000 homes last year.
The new model should be on sale in Australia in the second half of the year, headlined by a new powertrain filled with what Honda calls “Earth Dreams Technology”, which harks back to its much-derided final year in Formula One.
The Jazz/Fit made its debut in Detroit with Honda insisting it will be offered with conventional petrol and diesel engines as well as a fuel-sipping petrol-electric hybrid.
The range for the third-generation Jazz will start with a 1.0-litre, turbocharged three-cylinder petrol engine mustering around 80kW of power. The hybrid will use the larger 1.5-litre engine, with a petrol output of around 100kW (+10kW) and 155Nm (+10Nm) and it is mated to either a six-speed manual transmission or a continuously variable transmission.
Honda insists the model has been styled to deliver “the perfect blend of style and muscle with its elegant, well-proportioned exterior that cloaks the true sport chassis and powertrain beneath.” So there.
The complete redesign has given the Jazz a bigger footprint and wheels far closer to the corners than on the existing model. It has picked up over 30mm more wheelbase and is also nearly 8mm wider, but the car should be even easier to park because it’s now almost 41mm shorter overall.
Riding on new 16-inch wheels, the Jazz is being pitched as a well-equipped sub-small car, complete with Bluetooth connectivity, a multi-angle rear-view camera and a raft of new crash-safety features. Its extra wheelbase also helps with the luggage capacity and while Honda isn’t claiming a standard luggage figure, it is quoting 1492 litres of capacity with the rear seats folded flat.
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