Car: Honda Fit

Where did I find it? Galpin Honda, Mission Hills

Accolades: They have a website for that. And who hasn’t heard the Helpful Honda Guy commercials? 35 MPG highway.

Cost: $16,475 MSPR. Compared to $24,000 MSRP for the Prius

You’ll probably like the Honda Fit if you geek out about: Sexy compact cars with lots of storage space and good gas mileage.

Why its Awesome: Michael will be happy to tell you how long its takes me to buy new big ticket items. We even had a huge argument about this a few weeks ago– I’m afraid of buying new things. Why? Because the phone, laptop, or car I have works just fine and new technology has a nasty habit of being expensive, finicky, and breaking faster than the tried and true dinosaur. Seriously, think about it. If nature hadn’t decided to put in for their 200 million year upgrade we might still be running around with impressive triceratops instead of the bulky and unattractive hippo!

Add this reluctance to that my miserly ways and my pathological fear of haggling and you will quickly understand why, up until two nights ago, I was chugging to work in a fourteen year old Honda Accord with 240,000 miles on it, an oil leak, and a problem with the alignment that constantly made the front axle bounce side to side when you accelerated.

But, with my smog check on the horizon (there have been so many blinking lights on my dashboard on for months that I think half of them finally burned out) I could no longer avoid the writing on the wall. So, on Monday I finally tiptoed onto the car lot near my work with trepidation in my heart. We had decided to get a Honda Fit a long time ago but because I growled at him and hid every time Michael brought up going car shopping he had finally given up and left the whole process to me.

When I saw it, I knew. I’d swear that brand new, bright blue, beautiful Honda Fit was winking at me from across the dealer lot. After all the patronizing phone conversations I’d had with other dealerships (Ladies, why is the car buying industry still stuck in the 1950s?) I was pleasantly surprised how friendly the salespeople at Galpin were- they were reasonable, the first price they quoted me was exactly what I wanted to pay, and, even though the process took forever, it was well worth it. Our new Fit is now sitting in my bosses’ driveway as I type, her name is Aria and I have to say, after driving it for two days, Michael listen up, that new technology might, just might, occasionally improve our lives. I have, however, shed a few tears for my old Accord. We’ve gone through so much of our lives together, its almost like losing an old friend. Sniff. May he be well loved for the remainder of his days. I wish there was a rest home for cars where they could take long naps and watch golf. I think he’d like that.

Enough talking– check out the pics!

Looks tiny from the outside, but from the inside you seriously feel like you’re piloting a star-ship shuttle-craft. I’ve had the serious urge to punch random buttons on the dash and say ‘Firefly, this is Inara, I’m ready to dock.’

Baby got back!

Dashboard view- it feels huge (I keep worrying about my following distance and freak out whenever trucks pass me) and the CD player actually works! It also has a USB attachment for MP3 files and will play burned or MP3 CDs as well.

This is trunk style #1, giving you two trunk compartments, one in front of the back seats and one behind. I’m calling this thing a Swiss Army Car–there are 6 cup holders, two glove compartments, and the knobs on the bottom of the seat in this picture twist open to reveal yet another storage compartment. Squee!

The back seats fold totally flat, which is one of the things that sold me on this car in the first place. The thought of how much camping gear, pavilions, and swords we can stow in here makes me a little giddy.

Well folks, I’m going to go sit in our car some more. No, seriously. I am.

Till next week!

Jill