Daniel G.R. provides the following report:

Normally, this should be the time where one would expect Japanese rumor-mags to start getting things right about the Fit (including the sketches). That's why I asked a Japanese friend to do some "rumor-hunting" for me, and he actually got something from Mag-X that looks interesting. The latest Mag-X has some rumors about the Fit. There is much written, but apart from saying how successful was the past generation Fit (it has sold almost 1 million cars in Japan), the important points are the highlighted ones. - It will be introduced in Japan in October 2007 (Honda's own material says "Autumn 07"). - Both the 1.3L and 1.5L VTEC engines. They don't say anything about the 1.5L (although it's been widely rumored to be some kind of R15), but they say the 1.3L would make 100Hp and have similar or better fuel economy than the current 1.3L i-DSi. - The designer in charge is the same one that executed the acclaimed Euro Civic hatch (if it's the same person I met in Geneva05 his name is Mr Toshiyuki Okumoto, but it's not mentioned in the article), so expectations are very high. - There is no significant changes in size, but it's a bit longer and wider: 3.900 x 1.690m (current model is 3.845 x 1.675m). Of course, it as been developed within the centre-tank platform. - It will be offered with a "sky-roof" (this is already available in current EuroCivic). Please note that this information is for Japanese Fit. It is highly likely that markets like Europe will have a very similar model (including the sky-roof), but as always, it won't be the case world-wide. I honestly don't think that either the 1.3L engine or the glass-roof will make it to the US, no matter when it arrives there and in what shape. JDM Accord-name speculation. They have a lot of pictures of the NA Accord and lot of discussions as well. I don't think that there was anything interesting on it, apart them saying that Fukui didn't like having two different cars called Accord in the world, and that they were considering renaming the Euro/JP version to something different (maybe still Accord but with some subtitle).

Last edited by Tuan on July 21, 2007 13:40