Fit To Be Tied

First it was the next-generation base Volkswagen Golf that was in jeopardy of being dropped from the U.S. auto market.  Now it's Honda's Fit model. 

Pictured above is the fourth-generation Honda Fit, which has just been unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show and is due to go on sale in Japan very soon.  It will show up in some global markets as early as February 2020.  But all indications are that the new Fit will be a poor fit for the rapidly changing American market, which is bending more and more toward monster wagons, and so Honda will likely drop the car from the U.S. lineup.

Like the Golf, the Fit is a hatchback, a car Americans associate with austerity and economy - the very sort of car that most of them don't want to be seen in.  And the Fit is indeed economical; it's one of the cheapest cars you can buy, unlike the Golf, and - and bear in mind, I say this as someone who thinks Hondas are boring and mundane - it's a high-quality, basic-transport vehicle that is a good value for the money.  Also, unlike the Golf, it's a subcompact, which means it's way too small to be a status symbol like a Jeep Grand Cherokee.  For those reasons, the Fit has been flopping in the ten-day sales figures; Car and Driver reports that Fit sales down 17 percent through September of 2019 compared to 2018, being outsold two to one by the HR-V crossover.  Honda discontinued production of the Fit in Mexico, where it was being made alongside the HR-V, so it could make more HR-Vs south of the border.  The Mark 4 Fit will be made only in Japan.

This is yet another slap in the face to the small but passionate number of Americans who still recognize the value of a small car and appreciate its economy and nimbleness.  And just as Volkswagen, which sixty years ago urged Americans to think small, is now encouraging us to "drive bigger" - bigger SUVs, apparently - and seems to be ready to let the Golf wither away in America by not even advertising it, Honda doesn't seem to promote the Fit so much, either.  It's too busy pushing Pilots.  Like Volkswagen, Honda made a reputation for itself by selling small cars that drove like go-karts (and were just as fun) and sipped gas like a hummingbird sips nectar.  When the first Honda automobile sold in the U.S., the N600, below, came out fifty years ago, the joke was that you needed to buy two of them - one for each foot.

It may have been a flop, but this little roller skate of a car paved the way for the Civic, which wasn't all that much bigger when it first debuted for the 1973 model year but caught on soon enough and helped Honda as an automotive brand as well as a motorcycle brand. Over time, the Civic has gotten bigger and somewhat more mature, like the Golf, and Honda allowed the Fit to take over from the Civic in the subcompact field.  But Honda still remained committed to selling cars that were small and economical, even as its Accord evolved into a large, comfortable fairly sedan and as SUVs entered the brand's U.S. product mix, by offering the Fit here.  Now it seems less so, if its priorities for the United States going forward are any indication.

Honda has had a checkered history with offering hatchbacks in the States of late, incidentally.  For the Civic's seventh generation, the trunked sedan was offered in base form but the hatchback was only available as a high-performance Si.  So, there's a precedent for Volkswagen to follow if it only sells the Golf GTI and Golf R when the eighth-generation Golf arrives in the United States and sells only the Jetta here for base-model customers.  (The Civic hatchback came back to the U.S. only with the current tenth generation.)  But even if a trunked Fit existed, Honda probably wouldn't plan to offer that here either, given the car's minuscule size and the observation that even sedans are falling by the wayside in favor big family haulers.

The Fit is too good a car to die in the U.S. market.  It may be small on the outside, but it is cavernous on the inside, and from a Volkswagen fan like myself, that's high praise.  Don't expect similar praise from me for the American mainstream's automotive tastes or the automakers' disregard for anyone who hates SUVs and crossovers.  I'm growing even more disgusted with these horrible trends in the U.S. market.

I've done this for the Volkswagen Golf. Now I'm doing it for the Honda Fit.  Contact Honda at American Honda Motor Co. Inc., Honda Automobile Customer Service, Mail Stop 100-5E-8A, 1919 Torrance Boulevard, Torrance, CA 90501-2746 or call Honda at (800) 999-1009 of you want the esteemed Japanese automaker to keep the Fit in its U.S. lineup.

Honda: The Power Of Nightmares

On my way home this afternoon I passed by the trio of demonstrators pictured below outside Montclair Acura, a car dealership located in Verona, New Jersey. I parked my own car in a lot nearby, took this picture, then went over to talk to them in the interest of finding out what their protest was all about.

They were auto transport drivers who make their living carrying cars by tractor-trailer to Honda and Acura dealerships. They were protesting a recent decision by Honda to drop their contracts with unionized car carrier companies and hiring smaller companies that have right-to-work labor policies.

These non-union car carriers, most of which are fly-by-night firms with dubious reputations, have less experience in transporting cars to dealers and use trucks that are poorly suited for the purpose. The cars would be improperly secured to the carriers they ride on. This would save money for Honda but likely create serious damages to the underpinnings of the cars - mainly to tires, rims, axles and even the overall frame - that customers could not see before driving that Civic coupe or Acura sedan off the lot. Honda would not be liable once the car is purchased, but the consumer would be left with costly repair bills and compromised safety. The car carriers themselves are likely to less safe and less reliable. Wayne State University in Detroit recently completed a study finding that highway safety is at risk, and that "a shift away from established car carrier companies will lead to higher crash rates" for car carriers.

Cars that are damaged on delivery will hurt the consumer - literally - if disreputable car carriers with little if any experience are widely used. And what's more, the union busting that is threatened by actions like Honda's will destroy good jobs that pay living wages. It's not just Honda that's involved; Chrysler is attempting to switch to non-union car carriers that transport cars improperly.

Learn more at CarBuyersBeware.com.

Modesty In Motown

The North American International Auto Show in Detroit kicked off with much less glitz and glitter in a much more subdued fashion. Good ol' American showmanship remained in high gear (no pun intended) on the auto show circuit during the last great recession of 1981 and 1982, when General Motors was so full of itself it boasted it could build a small car just as good as anything from the Japanese . . . and demonstrated their inability to do so with the Chevrolet Cavalier. Even the start of Persian Gulf War in 1991 didn't dampen the enthusiasm at that year's Detroit show. Now GM and Chrysler, humbled by the bad decisions and inferior product, don't talk so loud, especially after they needed government bailouts to stay in business. GM's Pontiac and Saturn brands are down to one car or two each in their last year, and they're not represented at the show. (Even Oldsmobile had a display on the auto show circuit in 2004, its last year.) GMC Truck offers an SUV concept that's about the size of a traditional station wagon. And Chrysler's most exciting products are the Fiat-based Chryslers and Dodges that aren't on sale yet.

Ford is much better off, winning the 2010 Motor Trend Car of the Year award for its Fusion sedan and getting good press for two smaller vehicles due in showrooms soon, the next-generation Focus and the new Fiesta, the latter car set to return to America following a thirty-year hiatus.

The Japanese continue to demonstrate their affinity for hybrids, Toyota displaying a FT-Ch concept hybrid compact and Honda showing a new CR-Z gas/electric sport coupe. Meanwhile, Volkswagen, to quote an old VW tagline, does it again. The German automaker, Europe's largest, unveiled a new concept car - a compact two-door coupe obviously based on the new, upcoming sixth-generation Jetta sedan. This will likely be a two-door Jetta, the first since 1991. This coupe is quite stylish, offering impressive fuel economy and a seven-speed DSG transmission mated to Volkswagen's TSI gasoline engine with a supplementary electric motor. And the company is on track to continue expanding in the United States, as Consumer Reports recommends eight VW models and the new Tennessee factory is on schedule. Learn more - a whole lot more - by watching the video here.

I'm a little embarrassed by the dancers at the end of the presentation. Volkswagen is notoriously famous for avoiding the showbiz razzmatazz at auto shows favored by GM or Chrysler. But they have less reason for such showmanship, which is why they have none this year (no pickups dropping from the ceiling), and VW is bucking the trends of the recession, so I'll give VW a pass.

Just Move On Up!

I'm watching Volkswagen of America with great concern. Not because of their 18 percent sales drop last month; that's part and parcel of the recession. I'm more concerned about the possibility of the German character of its cars being compromised.

While VW will continue to sell its volume model, the Golf, in the U.S. market, and will even produce a second-generation New Beetle, the American division is going more in the direction of aping the Japanese strategy to increase its presence in the American market. That is, offer cars designed more for comfort than for driving. It turns out VW's new mid-size sedan, or NMS - I'll call it the Dasher, after Volkswagen's family car from the seventies, from now on - will be bigger than the Passat, not smaller, and it will compete directly with the Toyota Camry. The Dasher, to be built in Tennessee, will be just as well-appointed as the Camry and will likely perform and handle as well as the Camry.

Dude, if you want a Camry, get a Camry. Some American car buyers prefer the more refined and more finely engineered ride of a Passat.

Then there's Volkswagen's small up! car.

The up!, originally displayed at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2007, was originally designed as a rear-engined, rear-drive small car in the spirit of the original Beetle. (No aircooling, though.) But because of concerns about the possible tail-happy behavior of a rear-engine car, and also to cut costs, the engine was moved to the front for the production version, driving the front wheels. Some wags have even suggested that VW erred on the side of conservatism in deference to the American market. The up! had been designed with the possibility of offering it in the U.S. in mind but Volkswagen hasn't committed to such an idea completely out of fear that it might be too small for American tastes.

If Volkswagen had had the same attitude toward the American market in the fifties that it has now, the Beetle might never had been sold here. Volkswagen didn't just change people's minds in the United States about foreign cars; the German company changed people's minds here about small cars, and it got Americans to appreciate the economy and frugality of a small, basic car like the Beetle. Plus, the taut suspension and stiff shocks the Beetle had and most of its watercooled, front-engine successors have had changed many American attitudes about how a car should ride.

The cheap gasoline of the past thirty years, alas, re-established American preferences for bigger and softer cars, and Toyota and Honda have been all too happy to follow suit with their ever bigger and softer Camry and Accord models, respectively. To be fair, their small Corolla and Civic models continue to be perennial favorites in America, though they're rather unexciting. That said, American-style engineering and Japanese banality are not what Volkswagen customers demand from their cars. VW became a part of the American landscape by letting the market come to them. I understand the need for car companies to respond to market demands, but there's a reason I'm a Volkswagen owner and chose a Golf over the Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic. I like driver's cars. If you just want a car to get from one place to another, you buy a Japanese or domestic car. If you want to enjoy the trip, you buy a Volkswagen. Will we still enjoy the trip once Volkswagen tries to Americanize or Nipponize its U.S. product? Volkswagen of America president Stefan Jacoby insists that the Dasher and the smaller subcompact positioned below the Golf - to be called the Polo but having little in common with the European model of the same name - will be Volkswagens in every sense of the brand name, but I'm skeptical.

I still have bad feelings about the Americanized Rabbit built in Pennsylvania in the early eighties.

As for the up!, which may actually get here in 2012, there should be a market for it here once gas prices go up again. (Oh, they will, man , they will!) And as far as I'm concerned . . .

Heck, I'd buy one! :-)