In the Sunday ads today, Shopper's Food Warehouse (a grocery store in Northern Virginia) announced a contest to give away a 2006 (yes, that's what the ad said in big letters) Honda Fit. I promptly emailed them to let them know they have a very unique Fit to give away since the model released in April was a 2007. Maybe by bringing this to their attention, I'll get a couple of extra entries in the drawing. Wouldn't it be cool to have two Fits in the driveway. One Fit for coming and one Fit for going!

 

congrats man u might get 2 now hahaha

 

OK, now I know I am from the other side of the pond but I am having difficulty with this. Why should a car made in 2006 (or maybe even late 2005, who knows) and sold in 2006 be called a 2007 model??? Sounds like marketing b******t to me.

Here in the UK we tend to be a bit more straightforward. So Honda started supplying their 2006 model Jazz (Fit) in January 2006. And guess when you will be able to buy their 2007 model? Err ........ 2007

Or am I just old fashioned?

 

In the States currently, if a car is available on 1 Jan, it can be called the next model year (so in '06 it can be labeled as an '07). It is indeed strange-- like the fact that we're now the ONLY non-metric nation out of 200+ countries-- as a science teacher I could rant on this forever. Anyway, the early intro (at least back to the 1950's) was based on the next year's models being introduced at the Michigan State Fair (near Detroit) in late August/early September, then available at dealers nationwide soon after that.

 

Don't worry you are not entirely alone, we in the UK are only half hearted metric. We use mainly ISO units for measurements. But still measure many distances, including those on roads in miles and yards. And we still measure fuel consumption in mpg, despite buying our fuel by the litre.

So in reality we are half way between Europe and the US.

 

We even have 1/2's here, like 06 1/2 model year