Wednesday, October 23, 2019

The Next Honda Fit Debuts in Tokyo

2020 Honda FIt

Honda has unveiled its redesigned 2020 Fit at the 46th Tokyo Motor Show 2019. According to Honda, without compromising its spacious cabin and excellent visibility, the fourth-gen Fit was developed with the intention of becoming the globally accepted standard for compact cars suited to this new era.

Honda says the team pursued an "emotion value" which cannot be expressed numerically. Well, for what it's worth, I'm shit at expressing myself numerically, too but enough about me.


Honda announced there would be a new hybrid version of the Fit, and it'd be the first Honda compact car equipped with the two-motor hybrid system, and it'll be called e:HEV.

Fit will have "four dimensions of comfort." Apparently this means a comfortable view, seating comfort, ride comfort, and usability. There will be five grades of Fit, too. In Honda's words:
  • Basic:
    • The basic type of the all-new Fit offers both high-quality design and occupant comfort. This type will feature a simple and endearing design including a front face design with a gentle look and seamless and flowing exterior form.
  • Home:
    • This type strives to realize a relaxing and carefully-designed space with high visual and tactile quality by coordinating colors and materials, including natural-looking fabric seats made with high-quality materials, a genuine leather-wrapped steering wheel and Prime Smooth soft padding.  
  • Ness:
    • This type features exciting color coordination and adopts water-repellent materials for the seat surfaces and soft padding on the instrument panel. It is a sporty and fashionable type which will enable customers to enjoy driving just like they enjoy fitness and sports.
  • Crosstar:
    • This type features an exterior design developed exclusively for the CROSSTAR as well as 16-inch aluminum wheels, which look good both in city and outdoor environment. As for the interior, water-repellent materials are used for seat surfaces and soft padding on the instrument panel. This type projects an enhanced image of compact and yet tough vehicle. 
  • Luxe:
    • Striving to create a space where people can spend elegant and comfortable time, standard genuine leather seats were designed as an exclusive feature for this type while pursuing excellence in visual and tactile quality. For the exterior, platinum-style chrome plating and 16-inch aluminum wheels were adopted to increase the high quality feel.
Of course, this info is for the Japanese market. At this point, we don't even know if they'll re-up their commitment to the small car market in North America with the new fit. Autoblog does report that the Fit is supposed to arrive in Honda dealerships in February, 2020 but there is no information on Honda's media site about this.

Regardless, I think the new Fit is a very clean, modern, and forward design. It's not flashy, but minimal and simplistic looking. It still maintains hints of Fit design from previous generations while moving forward with the vehicle's styling evolution. I particularly like the headlights. And that brown color—I dig. I hope it still has the fantastically versatile Magic Seats in the back, too.

I assume the model above is the Crosstar, a Fit probably designed for active lifestyles or something. I mean, look—roof rails! You know how it goes. Ew a tiny hatchback! Gross! Oh wait, it's a crossover? Where do I sign up? All jesting aside, I love this color and can see this working in the U.S. market quite well. Hopefully better than the Chevy Spark Activ, of which I've seen two of in my life, both were actually the previous generation.


The Fit has always been a great choice for buyers looking for excellent space management, efficiency, great driving dynamics, and something that's fun to pilot. There hasn't been any work on other powertrains other than the e:HEV, so we'll report back when we learn more.

What do you think? Do you like the new design? Leave your feedback in the comments.

2 comments:

Glenn said...

The more I look at it, the more I like it. I really liked the original, when I saw it as a Jazz in London in 2005 and I've liked them since. 2nd gen lost a bit of the personality to me & 3rd gen got it back somewhat. This one seems to maybe go back to its roots. Tempering my enthusiasm until I hear it will make it to NA. I'm in Canada, so it's possible it might still come here even if it doesn't make it to the US, since we apparently seem to have a bit more of an appetite here for small hatches, although I'm thinking that's fading. Shame.

Barry Traylor said...

My wife has a 2018 FIT that she loves, so much so that I hardly get to drive it.