Honda New Small Concept for India (2010) news

Honda today whisked the covers off this New Small Concept car – a supermini designed to cash in on the booming Indian car market.

Unveiled at the 2010 New Delhi motor show, the New Small Concept is the fruits of its joint venture with Honda Siel Cars India (HCSI).

And this isn’t some pie-in-the-sky concept, says Honda. It will begin selling a production version closely based on this show car in 2011 – and it could even come to western Europe.

To make this a proper five-seater, HCSI has stretched the platform to make this an unusually wide supermini. It’s not yet clear which engineering matrix will underpin the new Honda for India.

The productionised New Small Concept will be sold in India and Thailand from next year. No price has been announced yet – but the company claims it will be ‘an affordable price by leveraging Honda’s global parts sourcing network.’

Honda sources suggest it could make the leap from east to west; it’ll be engineered to be a global car, with the ability to drop out easily any technology deemed too expensive for some emerging markets, yet retain all mod-cons for more established countries with higher price points.

The New Small Concept is such a slick bit of design, it makes us wonder why Honda ever came up with the abomination that was the turgid Honda Logo, forebear to the much more interesting Jazz.

By Tim Pollard