Sema is now 2 days old and no "official" announcement from Honda about the Fit. I was hoping this would happen. The Detroit show is January 14-22 2006. Do you thinks it's possible that Honda will make it official then and there? When has Honda made announcements like this in the past?

We all know it's a done deal, but it's nice to have it official as more info will be available from Honda.

 

I'm a little surprised that Honda didn't say anything about the 2007 Honda Fit for the US/Canadian market at SEMA. I was hoping that Honda would at least make an announcement on the type of engine the car will use.

The current rumor is that Honda will officially unveil the US/Canadian-market Fit at either NAIAS or the Los Angeles Auto Show in January 2006.

 

L.A. show is Jan 6-15/2006. January looks good for official news with both shows in that month.

 

I'd put my money on the unveiling of the US-market Honda Fit at the Los Angeles Auto Show since it's likely that the biggest market for this car will be in California.

 

I agree. The Scions were first released there, as well. Californians seem to be more welcoming of compacts, not to mention the fairer weather and roads.

 

why do they want to keep secretly??

 

Well as a honda employee I do know that the general reason for not making any announcements was primarily that Honda put a lot of effort into having the 06 Civic Si as car of show, besides a few raised and lowered Ridgelines that was pretty much it as far as Honda was concerned for aftermarket products. The 06 Civic Si is something that Honda really hasn't given a lot of additional info about. I've driven the pre production test cars, I have been trained extensively on the new technologies but they haven't even given us the selling prices for the two models of the Si yet. The Fit is just as secretive to honda employees, we get postcards and other images of every 06 car before they go into production. I have spots in my product books for them just no info and no product images whatsoever. Honda has told us as I am probably sure you already know is that the Fit will be a little different for the US market than it is in the rest of the world, and that doesn't mean the steering wheel is just on the left side either the information I have heard is tha they plan to have a significantly different car for the significantly different market that is the US.

 

Import Doctor,
Any conjecture on what "significant" might be? Major drive train / sheetmetal etc...Or just Cosmo and suspension? Even a quesstimate from a Honda guy is better than what I keep hearing from my local dealer's spin doctoring...

 

http://automobiles.honda.com/fit/index.aspx