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Leith Cars Blog

Showroom and Tell It On the Mountain: The Honda Fit is Go

“The power of love,” sang Huey Lewis with his band, The News, “is a curious thing.” This sentiment comes to mind as we read about Honda’s continual exploration of the 2015 Honda Fit, the latest retailoring of a car that has surprised, interested, excited, and baffled us since its introduction in 2001.

Because our blog series on Thursdays is about further expounding on a vehicle that you can find, or will soon be able to find, in showrooms, the new Fit fits the bill nicely. We can still remember its early commercials where a robot voice intoned, “The Honda Fit: The Fit is Go.”

Given its 13 years of production, the Fit is here to stay. Honda leadership went on record this year saying that the Fit will surpass the Civic to become the automaker’s best-selling vehicle. Fortunately, Motor Trend recently conducted a road test of the 2015 Fit in the somewhat-warm environs of Michigan. The article praised the Fit for its paddle-shifting and intelligent downshifts which apparently suited the writers in just the right way.

The writers cited a “quantum improvement” in the interior. Materials, construction, appearance, and design all seem to have taken a huge leap forward. Honda is investing deep sums in making sure the Fit will be super-integrated with mobile devices, so it makes sense that the interior is receiving more attention.

The Motor Trend writers went to unusual lengths to measure the change in gear shifts if you opt for the six-speed manual transmission. We’re just surprised and pleased that Honda is keeping manual transmissions alive, even adding an extra gear from the previous five-speed. The writers include cryptic passages, which we’re sure mean something, but alas, we cannot decode them:

“What that all means is that, rather than all gears being spaced closer together, the gaps between 1-2, and 2-3 are actually wider spaced than in the old five-speed, while the upper gear ratios are closer together. We applaud Honda for not getting greedy and going taller with the sixth-gear ratio, as that would surely have reduced the car’s ability to pull minor grades in top gear.”

The center-screen has excellent resolution that belongs in the 21^st century, the center console is sized to hold an iPad, there’s more horsepower and torque overall, and the design looks cooler, inside and out. The 2015 Fit: check it out.