Hi all, I've been enjoying this forum for many weeks as I looked for information relevant to the 2013 Honda Fit Sport I bought two weeks ago at the dealer near me in North Florida.

I'm a long-time aircooled VW fan, and for many years got by with two 1965 VWs (bus and beetle), relying on either a rental or my wife's aging Accord for longer trips, but finally yielded to temptation for comfort and spontaneity. My daughter bought herself a 2008 Fit* new a few years ago (after *her* old Beetle caught fire and burned up in front of her eyes) and I was really impressed with her Fit after she and I took a road trip from Kansas to New Mexico in it a couple of years ago. So it was always at the top of my list.

Despite my trepidations about upgrading to a car that 1) involves loan payments and 2) is more complex than a lawnmower, the Fit actually captures the spirit of old VWs to me in many ways: small, economical, kinda funny-looking in a good way, extremely practical in use of space, and with a reputation for being underpowered that doesn't reflect how much fun they can be to drive. So even though it was (very) hard to sell one of my old VWs to make room, I've been happy with the decision. (You can see the VW I kept - a 1965 convertible - in the pic.)

I splurged on the Sport Automatic for largely frivolous reasons. I like the Raspberry Blue Metallic color because I love watersports & marine biology. It's been hard to resist picking up some bling for it but I've been trying to be practical: Thule roof rack for my kayak, Aries floor mats (see thread), cargo mat. Most tempting potential add-ons at the moment are the Ultragauge and various protection options for the front (bra, grill mesh, 3M, etc.) as well as plush toys like the center console and Clazzio seat covers. So many goodies, so little cash.

The forums on FitFreak have been invaluable. I've found other forums but tended to gravitate towards this one, so I might post from time to time but am likely to be more of a lurker.

Cheers,
Joe

*So now she and I can engage in some father-daughter 1st gen vs 2nd gen trash talk.

 

Congrats and nice color. My first purchase was a 1967 1/2 bug converted to 914 disc all around!!!

 

Welcome to the forum. I always like the air cooled VW s I have never owned one but, I do get Hot VW s magazine on a monthly basis for the past 6 years.

 

Looks good! I think you'll find it a good upgrade from the VW van, very similar in spirit .. very useful even though cheap

In terms of reliability, the car may bore you. I saw a new VW Passat drive past the other day. They've only been on sale about 9 months. Headlight was out.

 

Congratulation on your new Fit, you'll love it!

In my family, our first VW beatle was a red 1953. It had hardly any dash gauges besides a speedometer and mpg. No gas gauge, only a "reserve" lever on the front right "firewall" that connected a tube lower down in the tank. If you were driving and the car started spluttering, running out of gas, you yelled at your passenger to flip over the reserve lever. If no passenger was available, you had to reach over with your right leg and do it your self while trying to stay on the road!
Over the years, I owned 3 or four Beatles, one with the old canvas rag top, and one I made into a dune buggy. I also owen a great split window "66 camp-moble with all mahogany wood interior and a pop top.. even drove it through Mexico for about 6 months. I rebuilt 3 of the engines using an instruction book popular at the time.. really simple and easy to work on.
They were all reliable until my last one about '72 when the end of VW reputation started with unreliable cars.
All of these were fun, but sounded like machine guns and with loud wind and road noise, along with the danger of flipping in hard cornering with the independent rear suspension.
I even had a VW Rabbit when they first came out, but it had a lot of electrical and other problems.

Anyway, enjoy your Fir, one of the most reliable compact cars on the road, with the front end look of a sports car welded onto a econo van rear, very dorky looking, only a mother can see through it and appreciate all that it can do. Great acceleration for its HP, loads of room, great handling.. really fun to drive, and I still can figure out how the engine takes up so little space!

 

Mid-eighties Jaguar XJs had two fuel tanks, too. But it was because they designed it poorly and had to give it one tank on each side. This meant you had to get the pump hose around to both sides of the car to fill up each. If your station had short hoses, this meant filling up one and then turning the car around to do the other side. It also meant that you had to switch over half way through your journey. This was assuming the switch worked, which there was no way to tell except by seeing which tank was dropping. If the gauges were working. Oh and they got, like 15 mpg.

Anyway, we've, you know, learnt a lot from the Japanese since then, like how to make a lawnmower run with way more sophistication than a 1981 Jag.

I didn't buy that 1981 Jag, but I do have a Honda mower.

And they were about the same price.

 

I had forgotten about the Jags.. my sister had a sedan with the dual gas gauges. She had so many problems with that car, especially electrical, she loved the car but couldn't afford to keep it.

 

Thanks for the comments, folks, and nice to see some other airheads here :-). I've owned about 14 aircooleds over the years--bus, beetle, ghia--from a '54 beetle to a couple of '71 buses (and I agree that's about when they started going downhill from a simplicity standpoint, partly due to Fed standards -- tho the campers remained interesting right up through Vanagons, imo).

I also always wanted a Jag but my experiences with an MG made me even more leery of British Leyland cars :-).

Anyhoo - - looking forward to enjoying my Fit.

 

I've heard MG fans refer to "Lucas - Prince of Darkness." The positive ground setup on my MG was just weird.

 

Funny over time people forget the problems with cars such as MGs I remember people would not drive them out of the city for fear of breaking down. Now people pay a high price to own one. I will stick with my 95 Miata similar to the roadsters of the late 60s and early 70s in styling but reliable.

 

Yeah it kinda does.

Congrats on the Fit purchase. You'll definitely enjoy the car.


any chance you can post a pic of your old VW van? That was the first manual car I drove/learned on. I still remember that 3 ft long shifter, and barely reaching the pedals... ahahaha..

 

I know, no one asked me, but since VW's are part of the thread... here is a picture of "Eiore" my 1966 camp-mobile that I acquired and restored in about 1977. I added a removable plexiglass skiylight panel to the figerglass and canvas pop top. Painted the body after several repairs. The whole interior was real mahogany wood. Propane stove sat on the fold-able door shelf. The Ice box was just that with a water tank and pump faucet and removable sink bowl that doubled for fixing salads, etc. Table inside folded down to allow the double bed to pull forward. I had a very nice Pioneer preamp/cassette with amp and four ADS speakers. The awning was a nice feature with tent poles and stakes. I had some grand times in this slow beast until I finally sold it in about 1984. Sometimes wish I still had it today, also feel lucky I never rolled it with my driving habits.

 

Don't know if you're still here Doane2u but love the split! A '77 Westy was my DD for years. Sold (for what I paid) when rust became a problem but hope to one day get another. I still have the VWoA issued CamperTent that attaches to the sliding door.

 

Was just surfing the forums and saw your comment, thanks.

Eiore was slow and dangerous, with brakes that faded with one stop from highway speeds, but I loved that bus and loved to "camp" in it. Probably would be worth a lot today.

Cheers!