2018 Honda Fit Benchmark In A Shrinking Subcompact Class REVIEW
Channel: Premium Cars
Date: 08/01/2018

Walk into Honda Performance Development and the first thing you see is an Indy 500 winner. Not a man, a car, the yellow DHL-sponsored Dallara Ryan Hunter-Reay drove to victory at the Brickyard in 2014. Its twin-turbocharged 600-hp 2.2-liter V6 was built here at HPD, where the open-wheeler is plunked smack dab in the middle of its small lobby in Valencia, California, about 30 miles north of Los Angeles. You actually have to walk around it to get from the facility’s glass front door to its front desk. 

Honda says racing has always improved its street cars. Even its least expensive model, the 2018 Honda Fit, benefits from the company’s vast motorsports involvement, according to Sage Marie, Honda’s assistant vice president of public relations. An amateur racer, Marie has raced Pikes Peak, as well as Baja, and in 2015 he won the 25 Hours of Thunderhill in a Fit fitted with HPD’s race package for the little hatchback.

Now in its third-generation, the Honda Fit has always been considered the subcompact class’ sports car. If you wanted a little inexpensive hatch at all entertaining to drive you bought a Fit. Those enjoyable dynamics, along with its innovative rear seat design, giving the Honda class-leading cargo versatility, has made the Honda Fit relatively popular -- the car consistently owns 50 percent of retail hatchback sales in its class.

Although the small-car market has slowed with gas remaining cheap and the mass migration to SUVs, Honda has improved the Fit hatchback for 2018, adding safety and infotainment features, as well as a little style and steering feel. 

Built in Celaya, Mexico, the Fit is offered in four trim levels: LX, EX, EX-L and the new Sport trim, slotting between the LX and EX. Base prices start at $16,190 and top out at $20,520 for an EX-L, with both leather and an automatic standard. 

In an attempt to give the boxy five-door a lower, wider look, each trim wears a redesigned set of bumper covers with piano black trim, and the grille gets a little chrome. The changes aren’t radical, but the new look is an improvement, with a stronger family resemblance to the Civic and the Accord.

Fog lights are standard starting on the Sport trim. It also gets a small front spoiler with an orange pinstripe, black alloy wheels, a mild rear diffuser, a chrome exhaust tip and a rocker trim to remind your father of his IROC-Z Camaro. Inside there’s orange stitching. The new Fit Sport starts at $17,500.

The powertrain is as it was: All Fits use the same 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine still making 130 hp at 6,600 rpm and 114 lb-ft of torque at 4,600 rpm. A six-speed manual transmission and a CVT automatic transmission with paddle shifters are available.

Honda has, however, made changes to the hatchback’s suspension and chassis to improve dynamics. The engineers have reinforced the body, adding braces to the rockers, floor, roof sills and cowl, and they have retuned the dampers with more pressure. A stiffer bearing has also been added to the steering rack.

To quiet the interior, thicker glass has been added, as well as thicker soundproof material to the underbody and the firewall. And to reduce vibration, the manual transmission mount and torque rod have been reinforced. Honda says the changes add less than 10 pounds to the Fit’s curb weight.

Also new is a full complement of active safety systems, unusual in the subcompact class. The Honda Sensing Suite is now standard on EX and EX-L, but it’s available on all Fit models with the CVT transmission. It includes collision mitigation, road departure mitigation, lane keeping assist and adaptive cruise control, and it’s a steal at $1,000.

Honda has also replaced the audio system’s unloved touchscreen volume buttons with a conventional knob so it’s much easier to use while driving. Navigation is available. The large 7-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility is also new. It’s standard on Fit Sport, EX and EX-L trims.

The Honda Fit wants to be revved out with the meat of the power appearing above 3,000 rpm.