The biggest disappointment of my motoring life in the past year is that the Honda Fit has grown up. I'd been thinking about the Fit for over a year now; it literally did not measure up with reality; without a kid (and all their stuff thereof), it probably would have been perfect.
The second biggest disappointment is that first-generation 1.5 manual transmission variants only goes on sale here secondhand for brief flashes of time before they're snapped up. One day, one of those will be mine.
It only gained 50 pounds of weight. I've driven the 2007 Fit in stick as well. The car hasn't really lost any of its little zing and zip with the size increase.
That's what irks me most about car companies these days - Its almost impossible to find a car with the bare essentials as it is. Sure, they make them, but they don't want to sell it to you. Way back in the day, when I was looking at buying a new Mazda3, my salesman was dreading the fact that I was (probably) going to have to order a completely stripped out 2009 model. No one had them in the Michigan, Illinois and Ohio area.
We're all deceived by car magazines; the automakers and associated suppliers round up a car for their tests and needs. But try to find one with just the options you want, and it's nearly impossible. The problem is that you want the
one car they have, so you're against the ropes in the bargaining ring. I've got to hand it to VW, Audi, and Mini; they will still build a car to your specs for no extra cost (just give them a few weeks).
The trouble was finding one that was both a Fit Sport and with a manual. I test drove a manual "base" model with a manual and Sport with a slushbox to compare. And I was luck that there was one xD in the South Florida area with a stick model with no dealer-added frills (except the nicer upgraded stereo and with factory floor mats).
There were two things that got me out of a Fit:
1. Local dealers absolutely refused to budge below 18K, citing demand. Paying cash offered no incentive. Although an old contact at Toyota with former ties at my old Toyota-based biz helped grease the xD purchase, especially since I paid cash...go figure)
2. The Fit was a little too narrow (not "small") for me, my wife, and daughter for a three-hour road trip based on our observations. We took the car seat with us to test it out.
The Mazda dealer wasn't budging either, although there was no market demand mark-up. They had one stick 3i
Touring car (black, some options), two stick 3
SV (base, few options), and several 3
Grand Touring (the whole shebang, with 2.3L motor). So they had a surprising number of stick cars in my area.
Options add lots of profit to the dealer (especially dealer-installed options!), the base models really do not. Automatic is a no-brainer, because only about 5-10 percent of cars are demanded in stick. Dealers do not want have inventories of cars that do not move. My exact car was sitting in a lot for 6 months, a "lot queen" as they're known.
The point is, finding an exact car you want in manual transmission is difficult, unless you can wait for the right opportunity or just get lucky.
