My, how we’ve grown…I saw this perfect juxtaposition a few evenings ago and had to take a picture. Note that the Fit has more than twice the power (117hp vs. 53hp) but from the same size engine (1.5l). The Fit’s wheelbase is 98 inches, while the Civic Wagon’s is 89.9 inches. Overall length is very similar, with the Fit being 1.6 inches longer (161.6 vs 160). While I’m sure the Fit is fun to drive in its own right, I would bet that the Civic Wagon is a total hoot!
I was thinking a new Fit might be the proper replacement for my 1st gen Scion xB, but I’m concerned about build quality at the new Mexican factory. What say the hive mind?
I thought Fits were Japan-built, but maybe it’s changed. I also thought one “benefit” of Abenomics would be less danger of the ¥ gaining value over the $, hence less need to move production offshore.
Call me prejudiced, but I’m still having trouble trusting Japanese models built in N. America vs. Japan.
BTW, try sitting in the back of the old Civic wagon before complaining that the Fit seems too large.
Considering that Accords have been built in the United States since 1982 I think your concerns may be unfounded.
I didn’t say it had a rational basis!
I don’t know where you are, but some of the previous generation Canadian Fits were imported from China. I think that has stopped completely now with the Mexican ones supplanting the Chinese ones. I think that applies to both the US and Canada.
Car and Driver reported on the issues Honda is facing at the new plant:
http://blog.caranddriver.com/honda-facing-parts-theft-railcar-hijacking-and-quality-issues-at-new-mexican-plant/
Have you considered a Kia Soul? My sister bought one of the very first ones in 2009 and enjoyed 98,000 trouble-free miles. I’ve heard the new generation is much more refined, too.
Unfortunately, there is no such thing anymore as a Soul with decent equipment and a stick shift, only the gutted-out 1.6L. If I could get a nice one with a clutch, I would.
What features are you looking for in particular? A/C, full power, keyless entry, 6-speaker audio with Bluetooth, cruise control, center console, privacy glass, and 16 inch alloy wheels are all standard now. Besides the larger engine, stepping up to a + model only adds upgraded seat cloth, a rear armrest, heated mirrors, and 17 inch alloys.
Nope. No keyless entry on the base stickshift Soul. You have to dig deep in the Kia website to find this out, but it’s true.
So if you get a stick Soul, and you’ve finished shopping and want to load your goodies into the hatch, you do this:
1. unlock the driver door (it’s the only one with a key slot)
2. open the driver door
3. push the power unlock button
4. walk back around to the tailgate
5. open the tailgate.
Pretty ridiculous, huh?
I’d say to wait a year.
Go here and read – lots of good info on both the good and bad. I wrote up my decision and purchase experience here. I also considered the xB, tC and xD, FWIW.
There were definitely quality issues with early build number cars, but they seem to be fairly well sorted at this point. My Fit EX build number is in the 19,5xx range, and there were no issues at delivery and no quality issues have occurred to date (sitting at about 5,000 miles so far).
Whoa. That Fit looks more like a Fat next to the nice vintage Civic wagon!
Haha, that could have been a great headline: Making the Fit look Fat!
“Fit or Fat! Tonight, right after Seinfeld!” 🙂
Here’s the Fit next to an N600 (proportionately in relation to each other based on wheelbase):
That’s so cool! Did you make it yourself, Ed?
Seeing them together like this really drives home just how incredibly tiny the N600 was… but at the same time, I’m also kinda surprised that the Fit doesn’t seem even more gargantuan next to it.
Yep.
Wow. Knew the N600 was small, but that’s remarkable!
Now for your next project, N600 versus ’76 Fleetwood…
Ask and ye shall receive!
And I suppose I should do this comparison, too:
This is like putting the 2000-05 Toyota Echo next to the 1969-73 Mitsubishi Minica.
The Civic wagon looks great! Much better I think than the Fit.
I hate the Ford Aerostar-style small windows seen on many of today’s compacts and sub-compacts!
You’re not alone. The Fit is now a fat bloated subcompact. Even the old Renault R6 looks better then the Fit.
The 1975 Civic Wagon weighs in at least at the bantam 1,962 lbs while the “porky” 2010 Fit weighs in between 2,489 lbs to 2,618 lbs which nonetheless had a 527 to 656 pound weight advantage over the paltry 1975 Civic Wagon. Don’t forget though that the Fit is equipped with a steel safety cage, heavier engine and beefier, heavier and larger tires as part of safety equipment required in modern cars and unlike cars made 40 years ago. Even though the 1976 Accord coupe was only slightly longer than the 2010 Fit 162.4″ for the former and 161.6″ for the latter, guess what the Accord still weigh in at exactly 1,962 lbs much like the Civic Wagon and YES the 2010 Fit was still heavier than both Hondas. Check this link for the 1976 Accord Coupe’s Dimensions/Specifications: http://www.automobile-catalog.com/auta_details1.php
To answer your question about the vintage Civic being fun to drive, no it is not fun at all. If you have the automatic trans then you better get used to over weight middle age joggers passing you on their morning run. If you opt for the manual version be prepared to give your feet and shifting arm a total work out down shifting and up shifting to simply keep up with traffic. The 1975 Civic was only a good car because a great number of domestic cars were total crap in 1975, In reality that era of Civic is a rubbish car.
I would choose the Fit as it is a we built and nice to drive car.
100% agreement. My parent’s ’75 Pinto was more fun to drive than my
teacher’s ’78 Civic CVCC hatchback. But the pinto started to rust
by ’79, while his car lasted a bit longer and got much better gas-mileage.
ALL the OEM’s have figured out people buy their cars like they buy their hamburger; by the pound. So the only way to justify price increases is to make the car or truck bigger. Might add 5% to the cost to make it bigger, labor is usually the same, so only the extra material is included in the higher price. Blew my mind when I found out Accords, Camrys, Altimas, were all as big as my 2000 Lesabre!
Other oddball thing is Craigslist for Fit’s; probably 60% of the cars are salvage titles. I should go to a salvage auction and see what ridiculous prices they pay the insurance company.
I worked a summer back in the ’70s for Industrial Engineering at a Ford plant. The engineers pointed out how little difference there was between building an LTD and a Continental. But how much more they got for the Conti….
When I was a little tyke around 1960 I remember dads and uncles talking about how a car should cost a dollar a pound.
I would love to have that old Civic wagon, 4 doors and all. (though I would prefer a 2 door Civic) You couldn’t give me a new Fit, unless I could sell it. It’s ugly and boring. Just another ho hum jelly bean.
I learned to drive a stickshift in a silver Civic wagon just like the one in the pic. Someone had donated it to our school so driver’s ed was two high school freshmen and a football coach crammed into the tiny little Civic bucking around the parking lot while 15 year old jackasses learned the sensitivity of a Honda clutch pedal. One of my favorite memories is crammed in the back seat (I was over 6′ tall in the 9th grade) while my friend Leigh was driving with Coach Orsini riding shotgun. We were turning into a McDonald’s to change drivers and for some reason Leigh confused the clutch and the brake and we were headed straight for the building not slowing at all. I was yelling, I swear I think Leigh had her hands over her eyes…..and Coach Orsini calmly reached down and jerked the emergency brake up as hard as he could. Disaster averted.
I had a 1980, IIRC, Civic Wagon and really enjoyed it. It consistently got 40 mpg and you could get an enormous amount of stuff in the back.
There was no way I could wear a coat driving it, however–I had to take the seat off the frame, move it back a couple of inches, and re-weld it.
I’d probably still have it but it started rusting–like it was biodegradable–and I had neither the skills or money to stop it.
My mother had a brown 1977 Civic wagon. I remember one trip in it camping in the Okanagan Valley: my mother, me and my friend (15yo), my brother (13yo) and my sister (10yo). On the roof we put the tent, and then a canoe. The back had all the camping equipment except what had to go into the rear footwells.
I like the looks of the early Civic wagon, but they are very rare now. It would be nice to drive as a classic car even if the wagon seems very heavy compared to the 2-door/hatch, but for every day use the Fit without question.
I love old school Japanese wagons (especially the Corona), but I’d take the Fit all day long for comfort, scoot, safety and convenience. Now that they’ve got a sunroof and heated seats available…they’re civilized!
53 HP? Wow…My 75 Corolla with a 1.6 liter engine had 75 HP…almost 50 % more than the Civic
Or, looked at another way – the smaller Honda motor had almost 3/4 of the power of the Toyota.
I had a green ’76 Civic Wagon. It had the Hondamatic. It was slow of course, but I loved the wood steering wheel and light weight. It handled well considering it was a step up from a donkey cart. Finally sold it after it blew a head gasket.
53hp slightly less than my 1600 Minz but they were very light so went well for what they were Fit Vitz Jazz or whatever they are called hold little interest to me, I’ll stick with my Citroen thanks.
Great picture! Had a 76 just like this one except it was “70s” brown while stationed in Hawaii – it was a great island car. It was slow (Hondamatic) but that fit well with the laid back island life style. Only reason I sold it was that a gal on a bicycle ran into the passenger side door, and nearly caved it in – after that, all I had was visions of an F-150 broadsiding me…….
The more I look at old cars, especially from the 1970s on, the less I would want one. Kudos, however, to the owners of old cars still driven more-or-less daily.
Total “garbage” compared to modern vehicles, no matter how reliable one may have perceived, compared to the competition.
I’ll take “garbage” over all of the boring look-a-like jellybeans on the road today.
I love the formal relationship of the cars to the house. It reminds me of my favorite shot from “Old Parked Cars”:
In about 1976, I wrecked my mother’s LeMans and we got a Civic wagon with the HondaMatic as a rental. It actually was fun to drive, especially if you are a teenager with the desire to thrash the living shit out of a car. It was not powerful enough to get you into any real trouble, and the front wheel drive was a real novelty then. Jamming the gas to the floor at the beginning of every corner was a lot of fun.
In normal driving, it was pretty slow and not all that comfy. I am quite sure that I would not trade my 07 Fit for the old Civic for everyday driving. This picture is a real eye-opener, though.
I suspect that you could leave that throttle jammed to the floor all the way through the corner and most of the way to the next traffic light as well…
I knew you had a Fit in your fleet so here’s a hypothetical: assuming you already had at least two “regular” cars for all of the regular driving and maybe something else for more specialized stuff (minivan or Truck for hauling people/stuff etc.), would a very nice condition first-gen Civic wagon be at all appealing instead of the Fit?
As the other resident Fit owner here, I’d have to agree with JPC…
I never owned an early Honda, but one brother had a friend who owned two N600s (which were “parked” in my grandmother’s driveway for an extended period of time while my brother and I were at Tech together), and another brother who owned a Honda of this vintage (which was constantly in need of one thing or another).
While it would be a novelty to own/drive the Civic wagon pictured above (and I do think the styling is much better sorted than the Fit), I’d turn it down without second thought if I had to use it as a DD.
I recently made a 17-hour trip in my Fit to my Dad’s (which included being stuck – engine off – on I-24 for an hour due to a bad accident that blocked the whole highway). The thought of making that same trip in a mid-70s Civic (even a brand-spanking new one) makes me shudder.
This.
I completely agree, and I did a similar length journey (1000 miles) last year in a Hillman Imp. I don’t what the fuel economy was, but say 36 mpg (US), and it would comfortably do 70mph at approx 4600rpm. It is easy to drive, but not relaxing in the way a much larger modern car is. The difference to a compact or subcompact is not so great, the most striking difference is the noise level.
Ah, nothing improves the thrashability of a car as much as the title being in someone else’s name. The three stages of driving a vehicle not your own:
1. Treat it like your own
2. Drive it like you stole it
3. RENTAL CAR!!!
I’d rather have the old civic wagon than any new honda. My favorite all time honda is the first gen(in USA) Accord sedan and not the hatchback. I just loved the look of them back then and still do.
Progress.
A ’76 Honda wagon was my second high school daily driver. The build quality was less than my Dad’s Karmann Ghia, the driver’s side window didn’t work, the mechanism was broken and the glass would fall into the door like a guillotine. I rigged up a rod and a clamp to keep the window shut in rain or cold weather. The gas struts on the hatch were gone too, the solution was a long board. That thing was heavy too, if it had ever fallen on me, bones would have fractured. The heater fan wouldn’t shut off, it stayed on all the time forcing heat into the cabin, my solution to that was to disconnect the heater’s antifreeze hose while re-routing the water back into the engine by looping one hose over to the other’s input by the water pump. Astoundingly bad build quality for a 5 yr old car. The final straw was when it needed new CV joints, it got traded in on a ’68 Mustang with a 170.
It was fun to drive and felt stable in curves, decent mileage, I liked running it through all five gears away from stoplights.
First car of my own was a 78 Civic 5-Speed hatch. Got totalled by a truck when less than 18 months old, so no idea how it would have aged. Can’t believe how small those are, though.
The Fit does make that Civic wagon look toy-like, doesn’t it?
I wonder if this comparison would be so drastic with another manufacturer. I think Honda was one of the few that didn’t have a larger car in the fleet at that time?
Yeah, that’s what made the comparison work, the fact that in ’75 the Civic Wagon was their largest (and longest) car. Now the Fit is slotted below the Civic in the lineup here in the US and is larger in every way. (And a better car, while I would love an old Civic as a toy, I fully agree that the Fit is “better”, as it should be, what with 35 years of progress and all.). As a primary car, of these two the Fit makes more sense, as an “extra” runabout the Civic takes the cake on visual charm alone (all IMO of course).
I’d take the earlier Civic over the Fit.