Honda Fit Sport Automatic Washington DC

BY TONY SWAN

This is not widely understood, but we have no conceptual problem with small, basic-transportation cars. Particularly now. For anyone interested in preserving the negotiable contents of one's pockets, small cars make big sense, and the more fuel prices soar, the more sense they make. Beyond that, the penalties we once associated with small cars — noise, spartan accommodations, primitive amenities, motor-scooter power — are essentially gone.

Where we have had reservations regarding small cars is when we encounter one whose limited power resources are further drained by an automatic transmission. Generally speaking, self-shifting plus modest power yields a car whose role in life seems to be getting in the way. And in a country where most drivers don't want to be bothered with — or are perhaps incapable of — manipulating a clutch and shift lever, the majority of the vehicles on our public roads are equipped with automatic transmissions.

So there's this institutional prejudice we harbor when we plant our backsides into any automatic-equipped subcompact. Which is precisely what makes the Honda Fit Sport automatic a pleasant surprise. As subcompact automatics go, it actually goes. Okay, 0 to 60 mph in 10.4 seconds isn't likely to produce brownouts in your peripheral vision. The manual Fit Sport in our May comparo, "$15,000 Cheap Skates," did the same sprint in 8.7 seconds. But it's not bad for cars at this end of the spectrum, it's far more entertaining to operate than competing automatics, and it's well suited to urban driving.

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