Over the last 20 years America has had a love affair with the Honda Civic and the Honda Accord. These cars have been the backbone of Honda's offerings here, selling well and winning many awards for design, quality and reliability. Yet with each model change Honda has increased each car's power and size to the point where the 2008 Honda Civic is larger than the 1986 Honda Accord while the 2008 Honda Accord is a large car.

With the surge in gas prices and the public looking for smaller, more economical vehicles, Honda introduced to the U.S.A. its successful (in Europe and Asia) Honda Jazz, renamed as the Honda Fit.

The Fit doesn't actually look pretty. It looks sort of tall, thin and a little ungainly, but maybe cute?

Honda Fit

Inside, the car looks big and well-designed. The fold-down treatment of the rear seats is clever, folding flat when loading as a hatchback, and folding back up out of the way when loading from the rear side doors. You could certainly put a lot of stuff in there. The driving position is comfortable with plenty of room.

The Fit is powered by an excellent 109 hp, SOHC, 4-cylinder engine which, while not something Jimmy Johnson of NASCAR would appreciate, has sufficient punch to satisfy most drivers. The Fit is available in four trims, a manual five-speed or automatic transmission base model, with the same two choices in a better equipped Sport version.

This car is quiet on the road, with little engine noise although, in common with most Hondas, there is some intrusive noise on rough road surfaces. It handles beautifully, almost like a small sports car. The electric steering works well. The ride suffers a little from the short wheel base, but not enough to preclude comfortable, longer trips. Drivers will like this car. It imparts a feeling of easy control on the road and willingly responds to driver inputs.

The instruments are large and easy to read and the controls are simple and logical.

Standard equipment on the base model includes power windows and door locks, antilock brakes and front side and head curtain airbags. The Sport model adds keyless remote entry with alarm system, cruise control, premium AM/FM/CD stereo system with MP3/WMA capability and auxiliary audio jack, rear roof spoiler, leather-wrapped steering wheel with “gear shift paddles” and other controls.

In true Honda fashion, there are no options available, just paint color and accessories. You cannot get a moon roof in this baby.

EPA revised estimated fuel consumption for the 2008 models is 27 city/34 highway for the five-speed automatic transmission and 28 city/34 highway for the manual transmission, all on regular fuel. The EPA estimates for the 2007 Honda Fit were 33 city/38 highway for the manual transmission and 31 city/ 38 highway for the automatic transmission. It appears these were revised downward as part of the EPA's attempt to make its estimates more realistic.

The warranty offered by Honda is 36,000 miles or 36 months and 60,000 miles or 60 months for the power train. The Honda Fit was introduced into the Japanese market in 2001 and somewhat later into the European and world market, therefore you should expect excellent Honda reliability from this car.

This is one of three small cars recently introduced into the U.S. marketplace, the other two being the Nissan Versa and the Toyota Yaris. In my opinion, the Fit is the best of the three. From an economical and financial point of view, any of these three cars with their low prices are a better bet than most hybrids being offered today.

Motoring since 1952, Austin Lynas has owned 55 cars and at one time raced mini-sedans in England. An aerospace engineer, he was instrumental in developing the anti-skid systems used in British military aircraft that preceded today's ABS systems. Lynas can be reached by e-mail at austin@sandiegometro.com.