The Honda Brio RS is One Mean Green Machine

Picture a dark, rainy, late afternoon in the middle of Makati Avenue. Dozens of commuters are huddled into a cramped and dilapidated bus stop as a torrential downpour comes down from the heavens, the sound of thunder out in the distance. In the gridlock, commuters hurriedly rush into a rundown bus, dodging the splash of puddles pooling in the gutter. 

Just then, a lightning flash. The congregation turns their heads to a nearby alley. A brightly colored subcompact hatchback appears from out of nowhere. Cut to the inside of the car where the bassline of Bill Withers’ “Lovely Day” is starting up.

The driver, in his mid-20s, a rank-and-file type of guy, looks carefree as he makes the turn towards the opposite direction of the awestruck commuters. From across the street, we see the car zoom past the gridlock, and the scene closes with Bill Withers belting out as the bright car drives off into an open road away into clearer skies beyond.

In my previous life as a copywriter, I actually pitched this commercial for a car that bears a striking resemblance to the last two syllables of my name. Unfortunately, the powers that be decided that John Lloyd and Sarah introducing their vehicle with their cheesy rendition of an Eraserheads classic was somehow the best way to go.

While I still contend that my idea was still better, I couldn’t help but remember it when I finally got my hands on Honda’s zippy, entry-level subcompact hatchback, the Honda Brio.

Now I have to be honest, I had always been a little on the fence about the car from the start. I initially thought that the Brio was just surplus to the Honda line-up since they already had the far more superior Jazz for a long time when it first came out in 2014, and it didn’t exactly make its case when it was introduced alongside the abomination that was the Amaze.

But with time, the Brio’s looks sort of grew on me. Its stubby silhouette that just appears to just stop halfway through, the gigantic glass panel at the back, and the tiny wheels. The first-gen actually looked like the little car that could.

Unfortunately, this current Brio isn’t as cute as its predecessor. It traded in its impish charm for a chubbier body and snatched several design cues of its larger brothers, the Civic and the City, in an attempt to look aggressive. If you happen to be the bunso of your family and when you were younger kept begging to be taken seriously, I need you to know this is exactly how you looked like. 

But what it did lose in charm was absolutely gained in its practicality and versatility. Today’s Brio is about 200mm longer (3,811mm) than the previous generation, which equates to more cabin space and better legroom.

And even with the longer wheelbase (2,405mm), the Brio still manages to be as nimble and sprightly as ever. The car being short and low means it has little to no body roll, and its size makes it so easy and fun to turn on a dime.

The 1.2-liter, four-cylinder SOHC i-VTEC engine at the heart of the Brio delivers 90 horsepower and 110Nm of torque, which is more than enough considering its size. With an engine that small, is efficiency even worth talking about? Honda claims a fuel economy of 19.6 km/L. In my week driving the Brio around, I couldn’t even keep track because the needle of the gas gauge wouldn’t move past the F mark!

But don’t get its efficiency twisted with performance. The Brio is still a peppy little bugger when you need it to, relatively speaking. The Brio weighs around just north of 960kg. And anyone who has ever known any sort of Honda owner will tell you that most of them don’t stay stock for very long, so at that rate, you might as well strap a rocket on you.

It’s actually a quandary to me that despite its lightness they’ve still managed to keep the cabin of the Brio very well equipped. More equipped, dare I say, than any other car in its class.

The first thing that struck me with the interior was how similar it looked to our sixth-generation City–even down to the gauge cluster. With the natural course of things, with nameplates moving upmarket as years go by, it’s no surprise that Honda has bequeathed to the current Brio the blueprint of the previous interior of its older brother.

That’s nothing to feel shortchanged about, though. You still get a seven-inch infotainment with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which is easy to set up and navigate, and the four speakers and two tweeters that come on the RS are reasonably good as well. It’s definitely not the best, but it’s by far superior to what’s inside other entry-level hatchbacks in the market that I can attest have laughable audio quality.

What may give you a bit of a chuckle about the Brio is how competitively priced it is given all that kit. That doesn’t happen very often for a Honda!

The Brio starts at Php 827,000 with the RS Black Top CVT at Php 863,000, on the middle to high side compared to its closest competitors. It’s definitely within the realm of possibility for those looking to get a starter car or those that just want a small city car to supplement their cumbersome SUVs.

Thinking about it now, I probably wouldn’t have done Bill Withers any proper justice had they green-lit my commercial for anything else other than this car. Because even if Honda decided to go all high-and-mighty tomorrow and slap a higher price tag on it, I can say unequivocally that you’re not going to find a better-spec’d entry-level subcompact hatchback than the Honda Brio. Period.

2026 Honda Brio RS Black Top CVT | Key Information

^{Photos by Wowie Go}