Wednesday, August 17, 2011
The Honda Fit is one devious little subcompact—its dinky size and milquetoast looks belie its incredible interior versatility and surprising athleticism.
But good as it may be, the current Fit bowed in 2009, which means it’s time for the five-time 10Best winner to get an update.
A New Snout for the Fit Sport
The Fit lineup continues unchanged into 2012, and still consists of the base Fit and the Fit Sport. Both get new cup holders, console ambient lighting, and additional sound insulation in the floor, front fenders, and A-pillars—the latter hopefully addressing one of our only complaints about the Fit, its high levels of road noise. To that end, Honda also thickened the glass used in the Fit’s unique front quarter windows. The base car picks up new wheel covers for its 15-inch steelies, as well as body-color side mirrors in place of the black-painted units on last year’s model.
The Fit Sport was given more attention, with new blacked-out headlight surrounds, new 16-inch aluminum wheels, and a reworked front grille and fascia. Inside, the Sport is set apart with a new dark metallic finish replacing the previous black and gray theme; new cloth upholstery; and chrome accents ringing the outboard HVAC vents,
center HVAC control tabs, and gauge pods. In the functional department, the Sport’s steering wheel gains audio controls as standard; buyers previously needed to pony up for the navigation system to add them. If you do need directional guidance and hate your left foot—nav can’t be had with a manual transmission—the system now includes Bluetooth phone and audio-streaming capability, and is also upgraded to run from 16 gigs of flash memory instead of a DVD.
center HVAC control tabs, and gauge pods. In the functional department, the Sport’s steering wheel gains audio controls as standard; buyers previously needed to pony up for the navigation system to add them. If you do need directional guidance and hate your left foot—nav can’t be had with a manual transmission—the system now includes Bluetooth phone and audio-streaming capability, and is also upgraded to run from 16 gigs of flash memory instead of a DVD.
Skip Taco Bell for a Week and You Can Afford the Price Bump
Mechanically, the Fit is unchanged. The 1.5-liter four-cylinder produces 117 hp and 106 lb-ft of torque, and in a recent comparison test with the Mazda 2 and the Ford Fiesta scooted a 2010 Fit Sport manual to 60 mph in 8.3 seconds. The transmission choices remain a five-speed automatic—with manual mode and paddle shifters on the Sport—or a slick five-speed manual transmission that we named one of 2011’s10Best Manuals.
Pricing for the Fit has inched upward for 2012. Base Fits ring in at $15,945 with a manual and $16,745 for an automatic—increases of $75. The Fit Sport costs 50 bucks more than before, with a row-your-own example running $17,680 and one with an auto $17,810.
Finally, the nav-equipped Fit Sport jumps a huge $300 to $20,310. That last number may seem a bit high for such a small car, but no other vehicle in the Fit’s class yet offers the same mix of behind-the-wheel fun and tremendous practicality, and the 2012 version should deliver those goods, too. Learn More...
Source : http://www.caranddriver.com
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