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Dudes, I don't want this to be a speculation thread. I pulled this picture of a
Honda-Life (kei-car in Japan) (courtesy Businessworld - they have copyright) and I'm not sure why they don't try to produce it here , a la Maruti which fits kei-cars with 1.1 Litre engines and sells them (I know, my wife has one such !). I'm sure Honda kei-cars rock, and would make a lot of sense in India. It is supposedly a best-seller in the land of the Rising sun.
Waiting to hear your bhpinians.

This will be dead with the pricing Honda have for us.

If they do bring it here, the kind of premium they charge for their cars, they will have a Wagon R competitor at Swift prices.

Not really a bad thing if they have a Honda, right - not for the brand value but for the engineering which they put into their cars. You already have dodos like the i10 at Swift prices for Indian customers with a lot of money to donate to car manufacturers.

Can you help me understand on the kind of unique engineering this car would bring in against the WagonR/i10 at the price of a Swift?

Dear anachronism, Forget the Swift price. Hondas are per-se better than Suzukis.To explain (not sure if you need one) , bring in the Indian context, the Jazz and the City are way better products than what's available in the same segment- Keep the pricing aside.
What I'm trying to figure out is why they don't re-engineer this car and bring it into India rather than waste time developing a car ground-up. They already seem to have lost the plot with Toyota displaying a realistic-looking production ready concepts at Auto Expo'10.
Do you have any understanding that could throw light on this gap in my understanding?

^Fanboy alert.

It wont sell its ugly and Honda wont make a diesel.

Only ugly diesel cars sell in India. Ugly petrol cars wont sell.

Care to list atleast one Ugly duckling's name? Except the Dzire DDIS!

:uncontrol . That was genuinely funny. No sarcasm intended at all.

Just wanted to clarify that I'm not a fanboy since I don't own a Honda and went for a Ford because it was 2.5 lakhs cheaper. That was just a way of putting down a deviation from the question . Hope you understand we're talking about a small car here.
Swift dosen't sell only the petrol.
i10 dosen't have a diesel - yet. They've been talking about that 1.1 L 75 bhp CRDi engine for more than a year now and no light of day yet though they've already shown an i10 Electric.

Ok - it's ugly. You have a point here. But so's any small-car hyundai product in india with the exception of the Getz , probably.

The Dzire DDIS is ugly. Period. Only it's not a duckling!
Now, :OT
My list of ugly ducklings
Santro (not the Xing)
i10
Wagon R
Reva
Mahindra Maxximo (it's ducking-size)

Ugly middle-aged ducks
Scorpio
Xylo
Tucson
Terracan
Verna
G3HC

Will add more as I can come up with them

I still dont get the point you have stated earlier as to the unique engineering that is going to come from Honda to make the boxy looking car you have posted as a special offering in India!

Are you speculating this car to be launched here or its a small wishlist for this car to be on the Indian roads!?

If its your wishlist, then its hightime the mods take a look at this thread and do the needful :)

Ok let me rephrase.

If you have to sell an ugly car in India, it better be diesel. Got it?

Appreciate your understanding. :)

What do you feel the mods need to do , my friend?
The question is simple. Why would Honda not bring this car to India a la Suzuki when they already have it in their Japanese line-up? Honda's engineering - especially their engines- are one of the best in the world. Suzuki's just making their reputation felt worldwide as a carmaker but they do understand the Indian market better. Thinking along the same lines, it does not make sense to ignore this option than to develop a new one from ground up.So the question is - why or why not?

As to boxy looking cars, I don't think we need to look far to see how many boxes are running on our roads.WagonR to start with.

My dearmost friend, the car you are talking about is not even listed in any plans for India and its your wishlist that you want us to talk about.

My suggestion to the mods would be to lock this thread for now and reopen when there are plans from Honda to launch this car in India.

Till then, it will be a blind man's story about an elephant if we have to discuss further on this car!

It's not a wish list personally at least.Please don't doubt the intentions of every poster or post here. The purpose of a forum is to discuss topics of interest.I think it would make sense for Honda to bring it in here. Please let the moderators decide which threads need to be given what treatment, and please try not to take posts personally.

There are cars in India in this bracket. This thing could undercut the 1.1 and 1.0 litre cars running on our roads, many of which are actually kei-cars in Japan.

Now thinking aloud,I don't seem to understand why they would not. The market is obvious.This if never before is small car-time for the world. India is arguably the world's most competitive small car market.The point in having good sales in a competitive market is a very good product.
Start with a 660cc engined car imported in CKD initially and then a plant set up.It would not be difficult for Honda. Since I did'nt get a convincing answer,let me attempt to answer it for myself.It's probably an issue they have with their image. Before I chanced across the mention of this car, I really did not know Honda made Kei cars in Japan!