During my trip in Japan I was really attracted to the cars people drove there; they were small but could seat a family, looked very sporty, but at the same time cute.  When I saw the Honda Fit 2009, it was almost like love at first sight.  I recently came an owner of the Honda Fit 2009 sport, with manual transmission.  Here's my first impression:  I'm no car expert, and I won't talk about the features it comes with; those can be found in the Honda.ca website.  As well, most of my opinions are compared with the Honda Civic 2006, because it's the only other manual car which I have driven before.

The exterior

The sport edition had everything which I wanted to give it the sporty look: alloy rims, spoiler, skirts, and fog lights.  The only thing missing was the tinted windows, but I resolved that the very next day. :)

The interior

The dashboard looked very sleek, and didn't look cheap when compare to other cars in its class.   Unfortunately, there was no room in the instrument panel for me to put my Windows Mobile phone in (which I use for GPS navigation).  The same couldn't be said about the side door panels, which looked very plastic and cheap.  The shift knob looked distasteful and felt like rubbery ball, but I can easily replace it.  The seats were comfortable and was able to provide me with the lower back support I needed, and the fabric was smooth.

The driving experience

The clutch for the Fit was very light, and virtually gave no resistant when stepping on it.  This made it harder for me find the right acceleration point when taking off from 1st gear, however made gear shifting to be less jerky.  When driving, the engine was really loud, and the ride was more bumpy than the Civic, as well gear shifting wasn't as smooth and a clicking sound could be heard with each gear shift.  Of course, making comparison with the Civic was probably unfair since the Fit is a lower class car.  However, I found the Fit's handling was better, and could turn the corners more tightly.  I haven't tried doing any hard accelerations, since the car hasn't run in yet.  Yes, I know I'm old school. :)