By Brian Normile
Honda today announced plans for many of its cars for the 2021-style year, and among the announcements of new features and updates, there are unfortunate news: the Fit subcompact sedan and the Civic Coupe are discontinued, as are the manual versions of half the deal. Size. Sedan. It’s time to pour one (or three).
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Losing the cup is a disappointment, we weren’t really surprised. Honda redesigned the Fit for other regions for the 2020 style year, but not for the United States, and that was before COVID-19 ruined everyone’s plans.
The Fit is a small and fun car with a remarkable app: Cars.com even had one, and I miss it a lot; however, according to Honda, more and more entry-level buyers flock to the subcompact SUV HR-V (the equivalent of the Fit SUV) and Civic hatchback, the newest of which Honda says outperforms the Fit by a ratio of 2 to 1. (Everything will be forgiven, Honda, if you bring the electric sedan and Prototype here in your Array position … which is not in cars, unfortunately, you can still dream).
The story is similar for the Civic coupe, which is also more productive sold through the Civic hatch. Honda says that since this generation of Civic brought for the 2016 style year, hatchback cars have grown to 24% of all Civic sales, while coupe sales have fallen to 6% since 16% in 2016.
What does this mean for the sportier Civic Si, which you have in the sedan and coupe frame styles? According to Honda, the production of the Civic Si will “stop” after the 2020-style year as Honda prepares the next-generation Civic, “including a new Civic Si sedan”. Will we have the If in the form of a sedan with the next generation, or will the tailgate be reserved for the most remodeling Type R? Honda doesn’t say it yet, but says that “civic hatchback will take the position of sports and non-public selection in the civic rank.”
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Another sadness from Honda came here in the announcement that the Accord Manual would be discontinued, which is not unexpected given Honda’s statement that manual sales accounted for 1 to 2% of Accord’s total sales. In fact, ask for such a low price that Honda said it even suspended manual construction agreements in December 2019. We didn’t know what would happen when we called it a possible long-term harvest on National Stick Shift Day, once again, it’s not an unexpected development However, rest assured that Honda is not abandoning manual transmission altogether, at least for now.
“Manual transmissions will remain a vital component of the Honda range, lately in the Civic sedan, sedan, Si and Type R,” Honda said in a statement. “Enthusiastic consumers have long reaped the rewards of this commitment, and those buyers have helped make Honda the number 1 hand exchangebox logo in the United States in 2019.”
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