It’s wild how the traditional subcompact car is officially dead in America. Sure, there’s the Mini hatchback and the charming electric dinghy known as the Fiat 500e, but when it comes to honest bargain-basement transportation, there are no subcompact cars left. No more Nissan Versa, no more Mitsubishi Mirage, and it’s been ages since we last saw a new Toyota Yaris or Ford Fiesta. Maybe that’s why examples of the final-generation Honda Fit have enjoyed astonishingly slow depreciation, such as this ridiculously nice example that just sold on Bring A Trailer.
It really is a shame that America will probably never see another generation of Honda Fit because it kind of was just the perfect small car. Over three iterations, this sub-Civic-sized hatchback had a strong reputation for offering the space of a small van in the footprint of a midsize refrigerator with the fuel consumption of a large scooter. Honda’s patented Magic Seat flipped and folded up and down like a circus performance so you could cram pretty much anything in the Fit. A huge yucca plant? A full kegerator setup, complete with the keg? A mid-length surfboard? Check, check, and check. The HR-V small crossover that effectively replaced the Fit wishes it were this genius, so it’s not a huge surprise that the Fit has a serious cult following today.
Admittedly, part of this is due to motorsports. From SCCA B-Spec to Gridlife’s Sundae Cup, there have been people competing wheel-to-wheel in these little hatchbacks for more than a decade. However, a big part of the Fit’s appeal is that for everyday use, there really isn’t anything that quite replaces it. It’s just so versatile for its footprint and resource needs, so it shouldn’t be surprising that nice ones still fetch respectable money.
Take this 2015 model, for example. It’s a mid-range EX trim in the fantastic shade of Mystic Yellow Pearl, which means it comes with toys like push-to-start, a seven-inch touchscreen, a sunroof, and a 180-watt six-speaker audio system. It’s a good spec, although whoever optioned it new went with the continuously variable transmission rather than the standard six-speed manual. Good for fuel economy, with a combined rating of 35 MPG, but not the best choice for engagement or acceleration.
This particular Honda Fit looks nearly new because it basically is. With a mere 1,558 miles on the clock, it’s averaged just 141.6 miles per year since it was first registered in 2015. That’s shockingly little mileage, and it really makes you wonder what sort of life it led. Was it only driven to church on Sundays? Was it a runabout for a scarcely-visited vacation home? Tell me your secrets, low-mileage Honda of the Sunshine State.
However, despite rolling on tires with 2015 date codes and only having two service entries logged in its Carfax report, this 2015 Honda Fit hammered for $18,000 on Bring A Trailer. That’s only $1,180 down from the original sticker price, provided you aren’t factoring in inflation. That’s what, $107 in depreciation per year or so? Porsche 911, eat your heart out. That being said, pulling inflation into the mix gives this thing an MSRP of $26,320 in today’s money, so sticking $19,180 into the S&P 500 and taking taxis everywhere using earned interest would’ve been a better use of the original owner’s money. Then again, you can go out right now and buy a leftover brand-new 2025 Nissan Versa for around $21,000 with a warranty, so a roughly $3,000 delta between an 11-year-old Honda subcompact and its closest modern equivalent seems rather slim.
Strangely, even with some of the work that may be needed to get this Honda subcompact in tip-top shape, like tires that don’t date back to when “Uptown Funk” sat atop the Billboard Hot 100, $18,000 is actually about fair market value. One of the closest comparable examples in the regular used car classifieds is a grey 2015 Fit EX with 19,431 miles on the clock listed for $18,995. Want an actual color? This blue 2015 Fit EX with 57,019 miles is up for sale at Carvana for $16,990. In that context, a pretty-much showroom-fresh Fit for $18,000 plus buyer’s fees doesn’t seem completely outlandish.
Happily, it sounds like the new owner of this Fit won’t be keeping it in a hermetically-sealed chamber. As the winning bidder commented, “This will be my daughter’s first car and I just got the biggest hug ever! Worth every penny all around!!!” Now that’s one heck of a first car. Something that, provided it doesn’t get binned, could still be in faithful service a decade from now.
It’s wishful thinking, but maybe elevated values of late-model subcompact cars combined with the recent decimation of U.S. emissions teeth could result in some automakers giving subcompacts another try. Probably not, but there does seem to be a market for truly affordable new cars. Why else would people be willing to pay so much for decade-old entry-level Hondas?
Top graphic image: Bring A Trailer
There are segments of consumers, often overlapping since people often want two very different types of vehicles simultaneously.
The real issue is that mfrs can make more money per unit from the sales of a larger and more expensive car.
The smaller, lower-profit car still required R&D, which is more or less fixed when starting from scratch to starting to build. So, either they sell more of the smaller car or sell it for a longer time, or they just say, “Fuck it” and build only the more profitable cars.
Which is exactly why Ford stopped selling actual cars.
True and the problem for the small car segment in the USA is that they cannot just sell more of them – the market segment as whole is small and declining. The Fit’s very best year was 2008 with 80,000 sold. It steadily declined from there and was down to 35,000 a year by 2019.
(If the market was as strong as some here say there would still be subcompact cars for sale in the USA. As one automaker dropped a model those buyers would move to other brands and eventually there would be enough sales to keep the remaining models on dealer lots. That didn’t happen. One by one automakers dropped subcompacts and sales of the remaining models continued to decline.)
The compact segment is following the same trend. The Corolla makes up almost 2/3rds of compact car sales but Corolla sales are still down by more than 100K a year vs a decade ago. Mazda 3 and Jetta are selling 1/3 of the vehicles they did a decade ago
Ugh. No wonder I want to keep mine.
It’s the pain in the ass of hyper-capitalism fucking up anything good. The Fit is a fantastic car and lasts a good long time, so then that ends up with people who get this near perfect vehicle holding onto it for decades and not buying new ones every five years, and used ones being still reliable and functional, so then the sales figures don’t look good enough to justify their continued existence in the market because they could just put out the worse crossover for more money for the scaredy cats who think they’re safer in a marginally larger car that’s less satisfying and will be dumped for the even bigger cars that are shittier and more likely to get wrecked because bad drivers don’t know where the ends of their cars are but maybe a bigger car will fix it and it just goes on and on and I hate everything.
My daughter’s first car was a Vibe – the Tardis of cars. It was lost in a T-bone collision, but did it’s job keeping my kid safe.
Seems unfair not to account for the role government regulation played in the form of the footprint rule. The Fit would have had to improve its MPG from the mid 30s to over 60 by 2025 to comply with CAFE standards. There is no way for Honda to really make money on a car like that when it has to carry a low price to even be marketable. https://www.jalopnik.com/how-the-government-killed-fuel-efficient-cars-and-truck-5948172/
The footprint rule didn’t kill the Fit.
The first thing to understand is that CAFE mpg is not EPA window sticker MPG. EPA is 25 to 30% lower than CAFE. So by 2025 the Fit would have had to certify to 45 mpg combined on the window sticker.
The Toyota Prius C was doing that years before the Fit was discontinued. The Prius C was also discontinued even though it easily met CAFE footprint rules – because it did not sell. People overwhelmingly bought the regular Prius despite it being $5,000 more expensive.
The 4th Gen Jazz still sold in Europe easily meets US CAFE requirements.
I did not say the government was 100% of the explanation. I said it was not fair to blame “hyper-capitalism” without accounting for the (obvious) role of government regulations. I was going off the figure reported in the article I linked. 45 is still an essentially 33% increase over my daughter’s reported MPG on her 2020 Fit, which is still a big ask in 5 years on what was supposed to be a low cost, low margin car segment. Honda would have had to find a different way to market the car at a higher price point and it obviously concluded that was not something it wanted to try to do.
The 60 CAFE number in the linked article is correct – but it is misleading. The vast majority of people have no idea how CAFE which is why I pointed out that 60 mpg CAFE is really 45 mpg EPA. Just a pet peeve of mine because both sides of the fuel economy debate use those exaggerated CAFE numbers to mislead people.
As to selling the 4th gen Jazz in the USA – all Honda needed to do is sell the EU powertrains in the USA to meet CAFE.
If US regulations allowed automakers to sell EU certified vehicles in the USA without spending many millions to make them meet our unique emission and safety regulations we would likely still have the Fit and a host of other low volume vehicles for sale in the USA. In that environment, the small incremental sales that come from the USA are a benefit to the bottom line.
However, in our current environment Honda would have needed to spend many millions of dollars – and likely more importantly – take up a lot of engineering and testing resources to keep selling the Jazz in the USA. That simply does not pencil out for a model that never sold well to start with and is seeing a steady decline in sales.
The HR-V killed the Fit. Not because of regulations but because it sold well and at a higher price point. Prior to the HR-V the Fit was selling steadily at about 55K +/- a year. 2016 the Fit sells 57K and the HRV 82K. By 2019 the Fit is at 35K and the HR-V 99K. The Fit gets dropped and those sales shift to the HR-V which is now up to 150K a year.
I’m not bothering with Bite Me’s rant because that is all it is.
I’m no fan of the CAFE standards but they’re also a product of hypercapitalism.
We have a very different definition of hyper-capitalism.
It’s no surprise people went up to the Prius from the C when that $5000 increase is roughly $83/mo across 5 years of payments. Feels like you get a lot more car for the money
It’s the same reason why the Fiesta ST didn’t sell that well relative to the Focus ST, despite it being the better enthusiast car
Which explains the death of the subcompact and compact class as a whole. A buyer can either spend a bit more per month to move up a class in new car or they can spend the same amount of money as a new subcompact for a much nicer off-lease used car.
There are very few places in the USA were a small car offers any advantage.
The Focus ST had more feel in the clutch than the Fiesta’s dead clutch pedal, which made it a much worse enthusiast car for me when I drove both of them at the ST Octane Academy in 2014 after buying a 2013 Focus ST. I could easily feel the clutch bite point with the Focus, the fiesta had zero feel and it was all guessing when it engaged. Was a little terrier though around the autocross course but to me it didn’t make me want one over my Focus at the time.
Looks like the engine has been siliconed. I hate it when they do that.
We the People want small cars. Unfortunately, We the People are broke and only have money to buy USED cars. If someone could make Used Small cars, they would sell like crazy.
There is a point there.
Let’s go to 1986
Honda Civic (was a tiny car then) $6k
Honda Accord (was a small car then) $10k
Now lets look at 2020
Honda Fit (about the size of a 86 Civic) $17k
Honda Civic (about the size of a 86 Accord) $22k
Today, a Civic is $26k starting MSRP. If the FIt was still available, the price would be
$21k if the ratio of 2020 holds.
$16k if the ratio of 1986 holds
$21k is about the price of a 5-6 year old Civic with 50-60k miles. A vehicle that will likely last another 5-6 years without any major problems.
$16k is about the price of a 10 year old Civic with 120+ miles. A vehicle that might not last for another 5-6 years without any major problems.
In other words, if 1986 pricing held true, a new small car would be the price of a worn used normal sized car. Thus a New Small car for the price of a Used car.
I don’t see it as possible, but if someone could sell quality small cars for $16k, they would have a hard time keeping up with demand.
I’m an engineer, I make good money. I have NEVER in my life owned a new car. Closest I came was the ’07 Corolla we bought for my partner in ’09. That is still the most I have ever spent on a car (not even including inflation)!! I honestly do not know who is financing these 60k vehicles. I have other things to spend my money on.
I’m also an engineer. I wouldn’t say I make good money, but I can make ends meet. I can’t for the life of me figure out how people swing car payments much over about $500. However, I’m not 100% anti-new car.
Minivans and pickups seem to depreciate as a simple percentage of the life left. Like a 5 year old minivan/truck with 60k miles will be about 75% of the price of a new one. If you figure these vehicles will last 20 years and 250k miles before being problematic, the math works out well. In this case, if you are going to need a vehicle for the full 20 years, get the new one.
But back to the way things used to be. My first new car was in 1998. I got it because I had no choice. Madza was on the last year of a design and was throwing money at customers to get one. It was $1500 cheaper to get a new Protege than a used one with 30k miles from the same dealership.
But cheap cars with big rebates are long gone. The only big rebates I see is trucks (which is sort of baked into their pricing) and EVs (and it’s still half the price to get a year old EV than a new one because they suck at holding value).
Mitsubishi were doing that with the Mirage even though inflation bumped it up to $18k by the end. No one wanted them because it was considered a ‘third-world car’ with poor safety and refinement.
There are countless Mirage-competitors like the Honda Brio, Toyota Vios, or VW Taigun built across India, Brazil, and Indonesia that could be sold here at $15k or less, but USDM consumers would balk at purchasing them for their perceived lack of features and safety.
I think the Mitsubishi Mirage sold well for a bit.
The biggest problem with these cars isn’t finding buyers, it’s finding reasons to import them.
To get a car like your list into America, you have to go through NCAP testing, you have to re-do all your instrumentation and lighting to be in accordance with NTSB, and you have to go through all the certification to meet EPA. The car might meet all the EU requirements and be legal to sell in dozens of countries, but it has to be re-certified to sell in the US.
How much does it cost to certify a car to sell in the US? IDK, but it it’s not free. On cars with such low margins, adding $1-2k each to cover the move from European to American specs takes the car from being a cheap crap can that might hit a market to being too close to “actual cars”.
Yes, all good points. I think at the end of the day some of the Indian market specials which retail for around $6-8k on their domestic market could come in around $12-15k after USDM homologation, but they’re about as tin-can as they come. Plus with no competition on the bottom end there’s no reason OEMs won’t just hike the price up to $17-19k anyway which is what happened to the Mirage.
The problem is that if you do sell an Indian market car at $15k in the US, are you making any money? Because if you don’t make money (e.g. just break even), while saddle your brand with the reputation of making and selling crapcans?
I mean, if they are selling these cars in India for $6-8k and your guess (as good as mine) that federalization would cost around $1-4k, then selling at $15k would net at least $2-3k in profit per car which is fairly significant on such an inexpensive product.
But again, the point remains that these cars are generally so far below the typical American standard that even at ‘used car prices’ I think they’d struggle for acceptance.
The $1-4k all depends on the number of cars sold. The more they sell, the lower it costs per car to bring it into the US. How many complete crapcans could be sold in the US at $15k or less? No idea.
They sell like crazy in California, where last generation of hatchbacks from 2016+ like the Yaris, Fit, etc. all list for at least 12k, and sell very quickly
Look up used Yaris’. They have depreciated 0%
Seriously. If someone runs into my yaris, I can’t afford to replace it. No way insurance will give me 15 grand for a 17 grand new car.
The problem isn’t insurance not paying. The problem is what do you get for $15k? It’s not like you can go to the dealer and get a new Yaris.
That is the problem. Yarii with 100k miles are going for 12 g, and good luck finding a stick like mine. And mine is only 62k miles. I bought it with 10k mi for 12g.
This weekend, I’ve been quasi shopping for a small car. My daughter (26) is wanting to have another go at driving and wants something small and easy to see out of. Right now, the only thing that is even interesting at all is a $6k Fiat 500C with 110k miles. Everything else is twice as expensive, especially if it is a Honda or Toyota product.
Every time I look for a car, there is this nasty stairway that I climb. “I just need transportation, what’s cheap?” “Ok, affordable and not homicidal?” “How about reliable, not homicidal and not too expensive.” “Well, for another year of payments…”
There is a manual Yaris in my neighborhood that is used to ferry an old lady around and I am watching it like a hawk every day for when she kicks the bucket and they might sell it.
I wasn’t really looking at small cars until recently. My daughter is 26 and hasn’t driven other than a bit. (She is on the autism spectrum) She’s gained confidence and wants to get back to try driving. Of the cars she drove, the only car she really liked was what she calls a FLAT (Fiat 500). For her, until she gains confidence and spacial awareness, a tiny car would be good.
So that got me looking. And holey crap, tiny hatchbacks are high. As in some Yahoo wants $10k for a 2009 Smart. If I want something reliable (read Honda or Toyota), it’s going to be painful.
My experience is that heirs respond positively to lowball offers if accompanied by a stack of cash. I’ve gotten great deals on a Cadillac and Lexus via this method.
I love the Fit (Jazz)
But it’s the first-generation one that I love the most.
This Fit is an outlier. It’s an insanely low-mile example of an enthusiast car that’s been discontinued. In yellow. Of *course* someone is asking a basically as-new price for it. (It doesn’t mean they’ll get it, either).
Also, the phenomenon of enthusiast cars depreciating slowly or very little is pretty common. The Golf SportWagen and Golf Alltrack go for silly money, often 2/3 of their as-new MSRP or more, and doubly so if they’re 6MT cars or in a fun color. But that doesn’t mean they would be successful if Volkswagen sold them new in 2026. Likewise, the Land Cruiser J200 (2008-2021) and even older J100 (1998-2006) have glacial depreciation…but Toyota obviously didn’t think it was worthwhile to keep selling the full-size Land Cruiser here anymore, or we’d still have it.
If anything, it’s a pretty common arc. Car that used to be available and that appealed to enthusiasts suddenly *isn’t*. Combine that with the fact that the car was rare *because* it wasn’t a good seller and the status of being a well-regarded enthusiast car—which often appeal to people who put pleasure before practicality and even common sense—and you have a scenario where someone is spending a startling percentage of the MSRP, if not more, for that car when it’s a decade old.
But, again, in order for this to happen, the car has to be pretty low-volume. Which is to say that people largely don’t and didn’t want it. It’s just that the small number of people who do…really really do. And it’s why it doesn’t work for all enthusiast cars.
This article, as well as a quick internet search, would argue otherwise. Plenty of used Fits are listed in my area in the 20s. I know that doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily go for that, but still, anything more than $15k is remarkable and demonstrates the demand for cheap, reliable cars. Furthermore, this example is an auto, which makes me think it isn’t an enthusiast who’s going to autocross the thing.
That low mileage part is also particularly key here, low miles does silly things to the prices of even the most common cars in more common listing spaces (aka not enthusiast-frequented sites like BaT).
Carmax shows a 2016 CR-V SE with 14k miles for $23k (new MSRP: $25.5k) or a 2014 Civic EX-L with 20k miles for $20k (new MSRP: $23.4k). Yeah, Carmax may be overpriced, but Carvana is also referenced. They have examples of very not-rare, entry trim midsize sedans for near-new prices, like a 2016 Accord LX with 17k for 21.5k or a 2017 Camry with 2200 miles for $22k (purchase pending). Both stickered for around $24k new.
damn i want one now
You mention push to start as one of the features. I’ve had several ’60s cars that were push to start. Parking at the top of a hill was such a great invention.
I’ve owned a few of these myself! I had an 80s Nissan with such low compression (but consistent across the engine) I could push start it out of my driveway by opening the door, leaning one leg out and just pushing it backward a couple of times.
Yabba dabba doo!
oooooooooooooooooooooooo yellow 😀
I’m jealous of that yellow! When I spec’d mine on the Honda website it would only paint a manual LX silver or the darker gray, not even red or blue. I went with Settle-For Silver because I wanted the stick more than I wanted a real color, even though I wanted both.
That was my predicament when I bought my Chevy Tracker in 2004. There were two Trackers on the lot. There was a bright yellow 2004 one with an automatic and graphics down the side and they were asking $20K for it.
There was also a silver 5-speed new 2003 model that had been sitting on the lot since September. They had it marked down to $14,800 because it had 44 miles on it from test drives, but nobody wanted the 5-speed.
They offered me an extra $1,000 off for ‘truck month’, and I had $3,000 in GM Card earnings, so I ended up getting the silver 5-speed one for $10,800. (plus tax, title, and registration fees)
The MSRP on the Monroney was more than $21,700, so I ended up getting that little SUV for more than 1/2 off!
They forced me to finance through GMAC in order to use my GM Card earnings, and the minimum finance amount was $5,000, so I financed $5K and wrote them a check for the balance. Then I made one payment before I paid off the balance, so I didn’t end up paying much in interest.
Yeah, that yellow one was cooler looking, but the price savings (plus the 5-speed) on the silver one was just too good to pass up.
If Americans DO want small cars, why did annual sales of the Fit decline to half their peak by the time this generation bowed out? Why did Versa sales do the same?
The Fit holds value on the used market because its dead and the small contingent of people who really want one of the small numbers available is really willing to pay for it. Doesn’t mean the new car market would support a new Fit.
“That’s only $1,180 down from the original sticker price, provided you aren’t factoring in inflation”
If you want your argument and article title to be taken seriously, you probably ought to factor that in. It’s $26,500 in today’s USD, which is the price of an LX HR-V, which is selling better than the Fit ever did, which doesn’t quite mesh with the article title.
Thanks for this take Phil, thats what I was thinking as well. Context is important, and the author left a lot out.
Because they stopped advertising it once the HR-V came out, having made the stupid mistake of giving the latter its’ own body stampings rather than pulling an Impreza/Crosstrek and just made the HR-V an additional trim level of the Fit that unlocked an AWD option.
Ford essentially tried that with the Fiesta/Ecosport. Didn’t work too well but maybe that’s because it was a Fiesta.
The Impreza is a bigger size class and translated better to a small crossover. The HR-V is also a larger vehicle overall than a Fit, including wheelbase, even though it’s on the same platform. Honda still makes the Fit IIRC, they just don’t sell it in the U.S.
The EcoSport was just a lousy offering, with dowdy styling. Compared to everything else in the segment, it was visually off-putting.
The current HR-V is based on the Civic platform, the original was a slightly raised, cladded and (expensively and pointlessly) reskinned Fit.
Ah, that’s right, but only for US and China. ROW it’s still a Fit/Jazz-based platform for the HR-V/Vezel.
Doesn’t seem to have helped the standard Impreza hatch’s sales figures.
Doesn’t need to, what it does is amortize the tooling costs.
True. But expecting a lifted and cladded Fit to have sold well enough to compete against the Crosstrek seems unlikely in lieu of the more conventional HR-V.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Honda_WR-V_1.5_LX_2018.jpg/3840px-Honda_WR-V_1.5_LX_2018.jpg
Besides, they still make a lifted-and-cladded Fit for Japan, but it doesn’t come here.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/Honda_Fit_e-HEV_Crosstar_in_Fjord_Mist_Pearl_%26_Black%2C_front_left.jpg/1920px-Honda_Fit_e-HEV_Crosstar_in_Fjord_Mist_Pearl_%26_Black%2C_front_left.jpg
While I agree in many ways, there is a very interesting portion of the market around defined options. Do OEMs make what people want? Or do they DEFINE what people? Is it both? Then how much of each? The farther you push the slider to one side vs the other, the more the argument about fault for types of cars dying changes. And I do not understand where the power sits on that slider in reality.
This is an interesting question.
I think culture defines what people want in a car. Every so often, a car breaks through the din and creates a new demand for a particular kind of thing that hadn’t existed before, but culture still rules the day.
Sometime, probably in the time period immediately following WWII, the prevailing culture became to get as a large and as grand of a car as you could feasibly get away with. Which automatically made us overall averse to the sorts of austere, utilitarian compact cars that foreign brands were selling, and especially ones that were hatchbacks.
Thus, the Fit’s fate in America was sealed well before it was ever conceived and before Honda was even selling cars here. It was always going to be a fringe product for the lineup, and then was doomed to eventually disappear once it was rationalized away. At the same time, while it was here, it was reasonably available enough across the country that everyone who wanted one could have bought one. So you can’t blame Honda and say they didn’t build enough of them or advertise enough, or whatever.
‘They’ decide what you want. They decide what they show you, what they advertise to you, what gets parked out front in plain, open sight.
I don’t think people who like the small car are the kinds of people who buy new cars as frequently as the market demands
Many factors. You sell that which you push and advertise. The Fit was ignored and pushed to the back, and every over priced (read high profit margin) suv was pushed instead. Did you really need anyone to spell this out?
Oooh, hot take there Rick, you sure showed me how to conflate your personal opinion with inarguable fact. Thanks for spelling it out, hero.
Here’s a fun peek behind the curtain. I actually started a debate about this subject. There were tons of subcompact cars that were on the American market in the 2000s and 2010s. Many sold well at first, but sales started falling. It’s not like these automakers killed these vehicles at their peak. Someone spending a ton of money at BAT (a place where people spend too much money) might not be indicative of the market as a whole.
Matt and Thomas argued that it wasn’t really due to declining demand, but the automakers moving to higher margin products. I bet if the Fit were put back on the market tomorrow, Honda wouldn’t sell enough to make it worth it. I see this as no different than the American Kei car subject. If automakers thought Keis would sell in America, Keis would be sold in America.
I guess it’s one of those chicken or the egg things. Are small cars not sold in America because people don’t want them? Or are they not sold here because automakers aren’t trying hard enough to get people to want small cars?
I always come back to this as an issue of federalization rather than outright demand. The demand for cheap, B-segment FWD runabouts down here in the borderlands is strong. Versas, Rios, and Yarises are still relatively common, but because they didn’t sell well on the national level they’ve been discontinued. Because USDM homologation is a costly process that requires cars to be certified at the national level, it leaves out local markets where demand for cheap cars is there yet they can’t justify the federalization cost for just one or two states. Such is the price we pay for having a protectionist market with standards that aren’t unified with most other global economies.
There are so many smaller cars that older and disabled people find are easy to get in and out of and can fit what they need. The fit is more of a secret one I suppose after a decent deal on an element is hard to find fit was slightly easier. They almost go in waves. It was the element, xb, then cube, now fit. Each one was selling for almost MSRP a decade later even with repetitively normal miles. If the economy was better that fit would have done numbers maybe 1.5 MSRP. I don’t completely understand why but it’s not just people collecting strange things. There is a good chance person that bought the probably will use it just like someone would have a new fit. Almost sad in a way.
Americans do want small cars, just in the range of a few hundred thousand per year instead of millions per year, and at prices that allow for thinner profit margins, so the automakers all decided to stop bothering
The automakers are about to get a reality check of the lack of disposable income and a worsening economy, putting limitations on what people can afford.
Before the trade war started, I had been thinking it was the perfect time for a Tata or BYD to come in and totally disrupt the market, Yugo-style (we forget they were a huge hit initially, with better build quality, it would have been sustainable)
Beautiful example of an excellent car.
But current pricing is likely a matter of supply and demand.
1) relatively few people bought these when new.
2) Honda pulled them from the US market.
3) those who did purchase one continue to cherish them.
4) folks who subsequently decided that a Fit would, er, fit their needs (whether to replace one they previously owned, or because they only discovered them after being discontinued), were forced to purchase resale
5) limited initial supply + customer demand + limited examples on the resale market = limited depreciation.
I’m still salty that we didn’t get the GR Yaris over here because we shat upon the regular Yaris, in the land of Bro Dozer trucks and SUVs.
My Corolla is definitely fun, but imagine an even smaller package with the same power train and less weight, fewer doors?
Bro Dozer, I’ll have to use that one, haha! Very true, as the big cars in America are just as obnoxious as the people who can’t drive them, but think they “need” them.
On paper my Fit is worth more than what I paid for it like6 years ago. I don’t know if its 6-speed manual helps or hurts its value, but I love it and am going to keep it as long as I’m able.
Fits were great cars no doubt! How much initial maintenance will this one need if it hasn’t been serviced any more than the CarFax says?
Speaking as a Fit owner, it probably just needs fluids changed, tires, and maybe battery. That’s literally it.
I miss my orange Gen II Fit, if the damn thing had a little more power, I’d never of gotten rid of it. My commute involves 80mph highways and it just couldn’t accelerate at those speeds without dropping gears, which got old quick.
I don’t know why Honda never put the L-series turbo in the Fit and called it an Si, they’d have sold a ton of them. Well, at least a couple hundred to us Autopian brown-manual-wagon types.
they had an Si in Japan IIRC
There was not. Japan got the RS trim, which was mostly an appearance package. There’s never been a Fit with an upgraded engine from the factory.
Love the Fit, but they were powered, geared, and insulated very much to be in-town cars.
I’ve driven mine across the country multiple times. It’s totally fine
You’re used to it. I’m honestly not trying to be flippant, but we get accustomed to things. I owned a b-segment subcompact from this era that was quieter than the Fit and it was also totally fine until I got into something like a base Camry and realized just how loud, high strung, and inefficient it was at interstate speeds.
I got tired of the subcompact.
You’re right that I’m used to it, but I’d argue that your reasoning is why this country has no market for small, affordable cars. For some very livable sacrifices, I’ve averaged almost exactly $1,500/year (in 2026 American Pesos) in total ownership cost. I’m cool with going 72 in a 75 for that. It’s not like it’s a Geo Metro and I straight up cannot highway
My reasoning is that I prefer the next size class up because I find them more pleasant to live with for minimal additional cost and lost efficiency.
It’s not my moral obligation to contribute to the market for a b-segment subcompact when I find the c-segment compacts so much nicer and yet quite affordable. It’s not like I’m advocating buying a Tahoe instead.
Agreed on all points you’re making. My good buddy bought a new 2nd gen Fit 5-speed in the cool dark purple (maybe an ’09?) and definitely got his money’s worth. He drove it all around New England and down I-95 to South Jersey many times, but I always thought that the Fit was better suited to shorter trips as opposed to 5-hour slogs at 75 mph or more.
The few times I drove it on the highway I felt the same way you did: Yeah, it’ll get you from point A to point B economically, but why would you want to when a Civic (with admittedly less cargo flexibility) would make the drive more pleasant? And for not much more money?
I think that’s a big reason why the Fit (and similar cars) weren’t big sellers.
Prior to the Fit that I bought when I retired, I rented all sorts of cars while living in NYC. I had plenty to compare it to, and nothing has made me happier.
That’s awesome, they’re great cars. I liked the subcompact I owned as well. And I currently have a Fiesta ST, but it’s a third car for the reasons above.
I’ve got a FiST on my list for the future toy.
Ditto. 41 states in 11 years.
The Fit is an old-school econo-car running close to 4k rpm at 80 mph, which is well into its powerband. That means if it does drop a gear at that speed it’s really screaming. Most newer cars will tend to drop gears at 80 mph for passing, but that’s going from just 2.5k rpms at 80 mph.
A small-displacement turbo like the one that went into the Civic would have been nice for that car. But it would have driven the price up (a la Mini).
As much as I wanted a manual, the CVT solves that issue, running at 1500 to 2000 rpm on the highway at 75, 80.
This is why I love CVTs. Compact cars used to have 4-speed autos or 5-speed manuals that screamed at 3500 or more doing 80. With ‘infinite’ gears (assuming you’re on flat level ground) the experience is a lot more refined.
My partner’s roommate had their Fit towed to impound, and somebody met them to buy it once they blew its bail. I didn’t want to ask how much they got for it, but said to them “You know everybody’s super horny for Fits, right? They are a hot ticket right now.”
Because only the Honda Fit has this strong of resale in the subcompact car market.
The Fit is the exception not the rule thanks to the cargo area trickery it can do with the rear Magic seat, and the reliability is solid.
The Fit was a great car, I’ve owned 3 of them.
But the sales numbers were never super strong, and for how cheap the car was.. it never had much margin for Honda so it’s logical they cut the product if they were the best car in the segment, and they could barely sell 40-50k units a year.
Why is my 6spd/RWD ’11 BMW wagon with 55K on it worth a huge percentage of it’s original cost 15 years on even though only ~500 of them were ever sold new? Because just because a car wasn’t a big seller new, doesn’t mean there isn’t demand for that small number of them used. But not enough for the automakers to keep building them, sadly. And there are always people willing to pay big money for near delivery miles museum quality examples of just about anything, in the case of this car. It only takes two people who really want it to drive an auction to stupid numbers.
The numbers don’t lie – there is minimal demand for tiny cars in the US, and the reality is that they simply aren’t profitable. As I have said on here many, many times, footprint-based CAFE standards were the kiss of death for cheap small cars, as they were no longer needed to offset sales of profitable less-efficient cars (or trucks, as the case may really be). Price small cars such that they actually make a profit and very few people buy them in a land where gasoline is cheaper than milk.
Yep. Also, when there are fewer examples of a car on the market, it doesn’t take much to drive values up. One or two overpriced cars can cause everyone else to comp against them, even if they aren’t even in the same region.
As for your BMW, a 6MT wagon with a N/A I6 is about as good as it gets for a modern Bimmer collectible that isn’t an M car. Some people will value AWD more, but others will be fine with just RWD, so that’s a wash.
I’m not certain an AWD BMW would be high on my list of cars I want. There’s a lot of issues the AWD introduces that the more “pure” RWD manual avoids. Unless you live in the mountains, a good set of snow tires is probably enough to get you through.
Given I own my car in Maine, I can confirm that with proper shoes it’s perfectly delightful in snow. In fact, on the same Dunlop snow tires, I preferred it in snow to the Saab 9-3SC that it replaced. The Saab had a small acceleration advantage on the level, but the BMW turned and stopped a whole lot better. Climbed hills better too. Weight transfer is not your friend in a FWD car going uphill. Though it hasn’t seen snow past it’s first winter, thankfully.
It’s not a wash at all. AWD 6spd wagons are worth 50%+ less than RWD wagons. And rightly so, as they are dynamically inferior and the AWD crap makes many maintenance\repair jobs miserable (and more of them). And there there are thousands of those in the US.
As most of these cars now go through the auctions, there is, IMHO, no such thing as “overpriced”. No better way to set the value of something than an auction. I just wouldn’t pay the “sport” or “M-Sport” silly tax used, same as I didn’t when I ordered mine new. But lots of people want that, and there are even fewer of them to be had in RWD 6spd form, so a RWD, 6spd, M-Sport wagon is the holy grail of holy grails and priced accordingly..
A few years ago, I bought an E46 325xiT 5MT for $3800. Seemed like a unicorn, because it was a sub-60k mile car, manual, all wheel drive wagon
Didn’t hold onto it that long because I had too many cars in the fleet at the time, broke even when I sold it. Turns out, people aren’t that into the AWD versions of 3 series wagons, even if they’re manual
The Honda Fit is one of the greatest automobiles that was ever mass produced. Selling my second gen manual this summer might kill me. We’ve been together since 2008
Bravo…and I agree. I intend to keep my 2015 EX for as long as I can drive.
My mother has the sedan equivalent of this car, the Honda City in Mexico, same powertrain, interiors, but sedan instead of hatchback. The car value on the used market is almost the same as MSRP, the car is so reliable, just normal wear and tear based on the awful streets of Mexico. The City reminds me of the later 90s, early 00s Honda Civic reliability and how cheap is to take care of it.
She said thats the car she is taking to her grave. I tried to convince her to replace it with a BYD but she dont want a screen or fancy features.
Had to look these up as I’m only familiar with the first generation. 10/10, no notes, would drive.
This has more to do with this specific vehicle than American afflictions for subcompants.
These GK5 Fits are valuable because nothing made by Honda or any other brand has realistically replaced it. See Honda Element as an example of this.
-Love, an ex-GK5 Fit owner.
Love, a current owner.