First thing I noticed when I test drove one. I said "Geez the old guy can actually get in and out of this car". You don't have to fold up to get in and out. It sold me.

 

If you remember, or anyway, I do, the first Civics were so small you could hardly get in one, and the first Accords were not much bigger. Look at them now. Monstrous in comparison.

 

Yeah, When i picked up my 1st car (86 Prelude Si 2.0), I was shopping used Hondas and Acuras and one of my options was an 87 Accord 2Dr Hatch (coupe?). That thing was small inside but my prelude was even smaller. My wife remembered going for a ride before we were even dating and she sat in the back seat. Coffin. My best friend's 87 Integra was no better. the Fit has the most room of any Honda I've owned (save for the Ridgeline). Naturally the Altima had more room for passengers... doesn't beat the fit for cargo though. My brother's 91 Civic Si is tiny... but was fun to drive.

~SB

 

i think every car manufacturer does this, increase the size of each and every model. well, at least since the 70's. Why? Why didn't they just make it larger in the first place? Remember the mid 80s Civic 4dr Wagon (u could even get it in 4WD!)? That is really about what the Fit is the new version of - w/out the 4wd option. now the civic is the size of the mid 90s Accord. i agree with earlier post...in 2025, the Fit will be as big as the current Accord. it will come in with V6 ... I really just don't get it. Why not keep the Civic, etc the same class size, and come out with a new model for a larger class car. The current Accord is a behemoth! nice car, but they should have just given it a different name.

 

Full size cars have shrunk, overall. Remember the fullsized cars of the 70's, which shrunk in the 80's? Even today, cars like the Impala, Avalon, Accord, and 300C are considered full sized, while they'd never have been seen as full sized.

The Japanese lines have grown primarily because they started selling only compacts and subcompacts, and have gradually expanded into full line automakers. The driving force of the downsizing was the price of gas. It dropped fairly consistently throughout the 80's and 90's. I'd guess that DowN sizing will again become the norm over the next decade, assuming gasoline prices rise.

 

Inflation is the nature of the business. In general, a model line grows until there is a major perturbation, or it is discontinued (possibly to be revived at a later date as a smaller car, starting the cycle all over again). Based on advertising, which car would most people buy:

"Larger, roomier, more powerful"
"Smaller, cramped, less powerful"

The original 1974 Civic had a 1200cc engine, rated at 50 HP, in a 1500 pound car; the original 1976 Accord had a 1600cc engine rated at a blistering 68 HP (but it only weighed 2000 pounds).

 

Interesting thread regarding size/power. I guess it takes some of us older guys to put things in perspective. I had a "discussion" with some younger folks on a computer forum about this. The whippersnappers were trying to convince me that cars are getting smaller and smaller by the day. What? The Fit is a powerful touring sedan compared to the VW bugs I rode in in the sixties and seventies. Yes folks, whoever mentioned it was right. You'd had to take a run at steep hills to get over the top on those things.

And what about the corollas and such? All puny little underpowered cars compared to anything you can get today. Today's "comparable" cars are HUGE, POWERFUL, and MORE COMFORTABLE by comparison--not to mention safer and more reliable too in many cases. When I shopped for the Fit, I sat in an Accord and I was shocked. Coming from a 91 Accord, that thing was ginormous!!! WTF? It's a town car now.

For those that would say, "what about the boats back on the day?" Sure, I had a 69 Impala and it was huge, but compared to what? That was one of the bigger cars back then but now you'd have to compare it to an Explodition (since that is today's version of large). Do you mean to tell me that my 69 Impala compares to and Explodition? No way, Jose.

Put in perspective, the Fit is a reasonably priced, reasonably powered, reasonably sized car that would fit the bill for many a person/family today but many folks have become so accustomed to riding in land yachts that they just can't for the life of them see it.

 

I think the "whippersnappers" are looking with narrow blinders at *purchases*. E.g. they see SUVs being common, gradually moving towards smaller cars in recent years within the limited population they have visibility into... Not looking at cars available on the market.

I'm a whippersnapper as well, and I think it's a bit f***ed up that a Fit is considered subcompact. It seems large enough for most needs, and far larger than a lot of cars over in Europe...

On a side note, interesting passenger #s... The Fit seems a bit larger than my old '93 Civic, so that makes sense. I prefer the taller passenger area to the newer Civics, those really turn me off. The Fit feels much more like my old Civic than the new Civics...

 

I agree with you. If your frame of reference is the post-SUV auto market, it is skewed by a lot. Kudos to you for noticing. I am trying to teach my nephew about this because he just can't understand why his ancient uncle bought a Fit instead of a Lexus SUV, like most people my age would drive where lives.

 

I remember them. I had some friends that had them. One was bright yellow if I remember right. They were tiny but well made even then. I wished I owned one those today.

 

know-nothing...Yeah, do you remember the Datsuns in the 80's? I had a Pulsar, and it had all of 70 hp. At the time, it was a "decent" performer. My Celica GT wasn't much better at about 110 hp, but was considered good. Some of these kids haven't got a clue what they are talking about. The Beetle had about 50-60hp, was incredibly small and had those "ejector" seats, if you remember them. Snap your spinal column in a rear end crash when the seat came off its tracks and threw you backwards into the rear window "shelf" area. They don't make cars like they used to. It's a good thing, too.

 

I remember those Datsuns, I owned 1982 210 . It had rubber floors, no carpet, no need for mats, just hose it out. Cost me about $5k new. Got 36mpg at least. Great little car.

 

They were well built. My 87 Pulsar, even though it was underpowered, was a lot of fun to drive. T-tops and you could replace the deck lid with a station wagon lid if you wanted to. Wish I could find one today, at least one with the 16 valve engine. Had a lot more power than the 8 valve one. It was a bitch to change the oil filter on it though. The oil sending unit was right next to the filter. if you slipped at all, the wrench would break the senting unit off. $70 bucks to replace it.

 

I remember that one now, always wanted one with the wagon top and all.

 

They were built like a tank, which made them heavy, and needing more power. Fit like a glove, though.

 

Yes, I had a cheapo Datsun hatch back in the early 80s and it was a POS compared to anything you can get today. The stick and clutch were like on a tractor and I went through a set of front brakes about every 20K miles.

I never owned a bug but many of my friends back in the 70s owned them and one friend had a super beetle--which seemed about as underpowered, loud, and unsafe (as you say) as the regular model. One very tall guy on the HS basketball team had a bug and had removed the driver's seat and drove it from the back seat. No, I am not making that up. Things were different back then.

But the Celicas were pretty good cars. My wife had one when I met her 1983 and it was pretty sweet. Another friend had a Datsun 240Z and that was a nice little car too. Still, I think that the Fit (if you measure it in inflation adjusted dollars) is a screaming great deal and I feel lucky to be able to find something like it for under 20K of today's dollars. So I really have no complaints because not everything was better in the old days. Although I had a lot more hair back then.

Sorry for the putrid trip down memory lane.

 

There is just no comparison between the Fit and any of the older cars. It is light years ahead of any of them, and priced well to boot. Interior, it has almost as much room as my 06 CR-V, although not nearly the power. More comfortable and fun to drive, however. We get 22mpg with the CR-V and 36-38 with the Fit. I rarely got more than 20,000 miles to a set of brakes then, and the same with tires. Tune-ups were a pain too. Seemed to need one a lot, with the older carbs and electronics. Come to think of it, maybe I don't want one of the Pulsars. Who could tune it up now?

 

An interesting case is the old "XJ" Jeep Cherokee, the compact SUV that really kicked off the SUV as a family car craze (though the Explorer seems to be the one that became the frontrunner for the movement).

I learned to drive on Dad's 1994 Cherokee Sport: it was 167" long and 68" wide, and 64" tall. The current CR-V dwarfs it easily. Not only that, a significant amour of its 64" of height was consumed by the ground clearance, and the longitudinally mounted engine, giant transmission hump, and driveshaft consumed a great deal of interior space.

Believe it or not, it was only about 300 lbs heavier than a Fit! (though with that 4.0L straight-6, it was damn motivated!)

 

My prelude with 110hp was one of my favorite cars. It was lightweight, cornered like it was on rails and well built on the inside. The sunroof never leaked and nothing inside rattled. That said, the rear quarterpanels were beginning to rust, the paint was faded/"baked" off on the roof and water would leak into the trunk. At 196K miles, the AC went but the engine was still running strong. it was 100(F) with a black/black car and no A/C... Traded it within a few days for my Integra GS with more hp and a working AC. My Dad's Rabbit Diesel Pickup was a workhorse too. 52hp and 0 sound deadening... Rattled like a Mack Truck but it ran forever. He bought it for $500, drove it for 8 years, then sold it for $400.

~SB

 

I had a 2001 CR-V for a while. That generation of CR-V definitely had more space than the current Fit, and the 2nd gen was even larger inside.

An interesting comparison:

1985 Civic wagon:
162" long
66" wide
57" tall
98" wheelbase
Curb weight: 2628
Int volume:89 ft^3
Cargo volume: 27 ft^3
EPA (revised) fuel economy: 27/32
1.5L I-4
- Max torque: 97@3000
- Max hp: 92@5500
Original MSRP (2WD): $10,580 (in 2009 dollars acc to BLS: $16,665.21)

2009 Fit Sport:
162" long
67" wide
60" tall
98" wheelbase
Curb weight: 2604
Int Volume: 91 ft^3
Cargo volume 27ft^3
EPA Fuel economy: 27/33
1.5L I-4
- Max torque: 106@4899
- Max hp: 117@6600
(thank you modern fuel injection and tuning)
MSRP range: 14,750 - $18,960

A bit eerie?