Honda produce some classy looking cars. Their cars have been available on the Irish market for a long time, but in recent years they were very low key, with poor sales figures. However, now that Honda is part of the expanding Gowan Group, I think we are going to hear a lot more about the Japanese brand in future years.
Honda was founded in 1946 by Soihiro Honda and has been the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959. By 1963, the people at Honda decided that it was time to move on to automobiles and they produced their first automobile, which was a truck, the T360. Then the S500 was their first real car.
The Jazz nameplate has been used by Honda to denote several different motorised vehicles since 1982, then 26 six years ago in 1999 Honda decided that adding batteries would be a good idea and so created their first hybrid model. They were the second car manufacturer, after Toyota, to introduce a hybrid car and last week my test car was a 1.5-litre Jazz e-HEV which was very frugal.
The neat Jazz has been around in one form or another since 2001. It has been recently updated and now comes as a hybrid-only with an upgraded engine that offers more power while maintaining its impressive economy.
Officially, Honda claim a fuel consumption figure of 4.5 litres per 100 kilometres. I didn’t get that low but had no complaints about my average fuel consumption figure of 4.9 litres or maybe 5.0 litres in urban driving. That’s close to 70 miles per gallon in ‘old’ money.
At the front you now get a neat honeycomb grille and the Honda logo, while the famous Honda logo is also used on the back of the car. My test car came in Urban Grey with some lovely black touches at the front.
Inside, the infotainment screen doesn’t dominate the dash it’s only a nine-inch version and really, it’s unintrusive. And the really good news for those of us over the age of 39 is that you get three solid knobs for the air conditioning and above them a smaller knob for the radio volume. And if you are under 39 there are also plenty of slave controls on the neat steering wheel.
But it’s very easy radio system to use and my daughter, who is not even 39, was happy that in early November the radio has Christmas FM.
The part-leather, part-cloth seats are colourful and also very comfortable. Naturally in a small car you won’t be able to carry a full set of golf clubs in the 304-litre boot. But if you want to carry bulky items you can simply leave down the back seat.
In Ireland Honda has an unwanted reputation of being expensive, but not with this Jazz. Prices start at €31,495 for the Elegance version, the Advance version starts at €33,495 while the Advance Sport version which I drove, will cost you €34,950. Road tax is €180.
Who needs an electric car where you are forever watching your range, when you can get such a frugal hybrid like the Honda Jazz.
