A Rapid owner checks out the Honda Elevate: 7 impartial observations

All looks good and if they price the ZX variant at 16 Lakhs Ex-showroom, it will be difficult to ignore for sure.

BHPian PeteKing75 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I also got a chance to review the blue color Honda Elevate at Magnum Honda near Mekhri Circle, Bangalore. I am planning to sell my Skoda Rapid 1.6L TDI and buy this. My car is already listed under Team-BHP Classifieds. Anyway my comparison and descriptions have the Skoda Rapid as a benchmark. I also managed to click a few pics and they just highlight why the Elevate looks so good in my opinion.

My observations and thoughts

• The Honda Elevate seats are really comfortable both at the front and the rear. They would be definitely more comfortable than the Rapid and probably more than even Kia Seltos 2023 which was also under consideration. Ventilated seats may be a miss elsewhere, but I can live without it in Bangalore (Weather advantage!)

• As mentioned already, the "Thud" of the German cars - VW, Skoda is missing here, but its significantly more than the Koreans or the other Japanese cars.

• The Alloy wheels look stylish. The dashboard is neat and functional. It will not distract with unnecessary features. I am not a big fan of watching the car coming behind my car on a 10 inch or 7 inch screen near the speedometer. I would rather rely on the mirrors! The left lane watch camera on the other hand will be useful. Electric Seat adjustment would have been better, but we can live without it. Kia Seltos has much more features obviously, but do we need all of them is the question to ask yourself?

• Rear seats can seat 2 healthy (read more than average weight) comfortably and a child or a slim person in the middle seat. This will not set any benchmarks for 3 people seating in rear. Maybe the Seltos will do that a bit better, but according to me most 5 seater cars in this segment cannot do that. If you were to include a MG Hector or Innova Hycross as in segment due to base model pricing, then they will do a much better job, being wider and longer!

• Blue color looks really classy in my opinion though it may be subjective. Car in white might look bigger. The dark color might need some PPF application, depleting our bank accounts a bit further!

• Ground Clearance is very good. In fact after just sitting in the car, when I returned and drove my Rapid, it felt very low slung which it is with 52 mm difference in GC! Hope the handling is good enough for a SUV. I know I should not do an Apple to Apple comparison with a sedan like Rapid.

• All looks good and if they price ZX at 16 Lakhs Ex-showroom, it will be difficult to ignore for sure.

Over to the test drive now. Fingers crossed and a Honda might be in my garage soon replacing a Skoda!

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