Comparisons like these have been done on CC in the past, but it does bear repeating. And what better way to show it than with a first generation Accord and current Fit?
I’m sure the Fit gets better mileage, has more interior room, and all in all is a better daily driver than the Accord next to it, but I don’t care. I like the vintage one!
These pictures were posted to the Cohort by Guest Writer and frequent commenter, Chris Green. This classic Accord sedan, looking very nice in dark red, is his car. He drove it to the grocery store a while back, and when he came out, the Fit was parked next to it. Naturally, he had to get a couple of photos.
It, along with his 1976 Monte Carlo, represent a pretty good cross section of car choices for the US consumer in the late Seventies. What a nice Accord! These have been extinct in NW Illinois since about 1991.
I much prefer the looks of the Accord. The styling on newer cars is too frickin’ gimmicky, and the Fit is a good example of this. The Accord is a nice, clean design, but the Fit is just too busy-looking.
Ironic that there are two relics on the left side of that pic? An old Accord and a Blockbuster video rental kiosk. Which one is more useless/outmoded today…???
That kiosk is far from outmoded – yet. Lots of us are using DSL that still doesn’t have a high enough transfer speed to watch internet video with any degree of success. And there are still people on dial-up.
Furthermore nobody seems to get the fact that downloaded and streamed video is highly compressed much more than DVD’s or BluRay disks. You get much higher image quality with a disk rather than streamed.
If this is the same Chris Green who has the 79 Cutlass Brougham I will buy when he wants to sell and it will remain stock, I promise! That is also a nice Accord, the intellectual types of metro Detroit drove these back in the day. I’ve always liked the quality of the mouse fur covered seats and how solid they felt overall… good daily driver.
Waxing romantic about old cars here is lots of fun but whenever I actually drive one I see how CC is a much better outlet than actually driving on a daily basis.
Those old Accords were good cars (although no perfect) but made all of like 68hp and especially with the auto were deal slow. They were also pop cans, really light and flimsy. I would shudder to think of any kind of a collision in one.
I had a 2008 Fit and my sister has a 2010 and both, although very different, are great cars. The 2008 manual was a real scream to drive and the 2010 automatic is a great, economical car that you can put a load of stuff in.
I will keep good brakes, abs, side airbags, good a/c, better fuel efficiency, thanks!
But don’t you just wish the Fit were better looking? It looks like they designed an interior and wrapped the smallest exterior on it that would fit, regardless of how it looked.
That is exactly how it was designed, Jim, which is the endearing thing about these utilitarian little boxes. They are designed to move lots of stuff and people cheaply and reliably. They are very good at that task. There are others with more style, like the Veloster or the Fiesta. Neither of these two are anywhere as practical as the Fit. There are trade offs in style and the Fit has a very useful interior and drives great. The 2008 was really a lot of fun to drive, a real racy little thing. Mine was a Canadian DX model with no a/c so it was very light. I upgraded the wheels and tires to the same size as the Sport and the car handled like a go kart. It was really amazing how you could just fling the wheel around corners and it was all of 1.8 turns lock to lock! The steering on that car was phenomenal.
Problem with the Fit was I was driving a lot and it really is not comfortable to spend several hours a day inside. The hard ride wears you down, as does the torqueless engine that has to be revved constantly, meaning lots of gear shifting. After hour three it got old so I got my Acura, which is much more comfortable for long days.
Still, for what it is, the Fit is a great car.
And let’s not jump so quickly to the conclusion that the Fit gets better mileage. My 2007 Fit Sport automatic is a struggle to hit and maintain 30 mpg in all around driving. Any substantial time over 3000 rpms (where the car is happiest) or over 65 mph puts you solidly into the mid 20s.
The Fit is fairly heavy for its size and its tall stance isn’t so great for aerodynamics.
As for driving the Fit, I second Len. Lots of fun, but the ride can be not so great after awhile, and you don’t get sport and economy at the same time.
Sounds like my Xb gets better mileage than your Fit. I average a consistent 32 with mixed riving, 29-30 in the winter, which is mostly very short city hops.
My instant mileage display (OBD port reader) consistently shows 34 at exactly (calibrated) 65, on long, flat straights with cruise on.
My son Jimmy has eked almost 40 out of the car on a trip by keeping the speed down. In another era, he would have been a sought-after driver for the Mobilgas Economy Runs. I have hit 37 under very special circumstances (65 or under and no a/c on). But in city/suburban with a little highway thrown in and it is 27-28 if I drive it without regard for mpgs. I guess it is better than the Club Wagon that it replaced.
Likewise here, 32 in the daily commute is average (have done 34 on occasion). Have yet to use the car on a strictly highway trip, curious to see what the mileage will do there.
About the same on the highway: 32 (70 mph, more or less). That’s the result of boxy aerodynamics; highway mileage is about the same as city.
+ 1
My car is about 18 months old and has almost 52k miles. I have to agree with Len when it comes to my primary car. I still have old one around to serve as a second car although the 91 S10 is probably capable of a lot more than it does.
52k at 18 months? Yikes! And I thought I was racking up miles… I just turned 10k on the Escape today. I’ve had it just a little over six months. FWIW, I average between 25-27 mpg around town, and between 27-32 on the open road. Of course speed makes a big difference. I tend to drive like a retired Floridian, AKA, slowly 🙂
My little Escape, AKA “The Wagonlet” is a four cylinder, for wheel drive model. I rather like it.
We do a lot of driving around Texas. Primarily on two lane blacktop. Normal life gives enough miles but now my wife has to visit some sites throughout the state from time to time.
BTW, doing a future article which will mention the N600 which is the first Honda (car) that I drove. There is no comparison between it and either the the giant Hondas pictured above. google that one.
Whatever happened to low dashboard? Honda used to have visibility-enhancing low dashboard. Now they even got double decker dashboard in an attempt to make them as high as possible. Next they’ll have a climbing-wall inspired dash that’s as high as your chin, so the drivers would have to kinda peek over to see out. Maybe with a lot of blank instrument panels and blank switches, because what else would you put in such a huge real estate? And a big screen TV-sized infotainment screen, of course.
I’d bet it has to do with crash and safety standards; as well as physics of the airbag.
Lots of changes came from that. Remember when the dashes were padded? Not no more…they’re textured to LOOK like they’re padded; but it’s just hard plastic. A giant step backwards…if nothing else, the padding absorbed noise.
No kidding, eh?
My 04 Saab 9-5 looks smaller than a current Corolla when they are parked side by side. Yet driving such Corolla is a stress test to your senses (for example, it seems to be louder inside than outside), while the old SAAB is still a thrill and pleasure.
So the same guy who has that incredible green factory freak Monte Carlo also has this gorgeous 10k mile Accord tucked away in the garage?? Words cannot express my jealousy… I’m hoping it makes a COAL one day!
It’s the same guy — it’s a fun car, but I have to say it’s a little better in the photo than in real life! And as much as I like it, I would rather have a hatchback with a 5-speed (it has the goofy 2-speed Hondamatic). But on the other hand, when it comes to low-mileage 30 year old cars, sometimes you can’t be too choosy!
My Dad had a ’76 hatchback version the Accord back in the day, his was blue on blue and a year ago or so, I spotted an ’80 Accord hatchback in that same color combo at my local Costco.
Here it is, taken from my cell phone
I love that color! The hatchback is a lot more sporty and cool-looking to me than the 4-door, but both are classics.
It’s always interesting to see old and new cars in juxtaposition to one another.
One of my neighbors just purchased a new Buick Verano, it sits in the garage next to his mid 00’s Chevy Impala. Looking in from the street, they appear to be the same width and height. I haven’t seen both of them outside in the driveway, but I’d be willing to bet that the Verano is almost the same length as the Impy, too.
The way they grow, could we see, sooner or later, a Honda who could be a big and large as the former box-B-body Caprice or the Panther LTD/Crown Victoria?
I hope not. The last thing we need to see anymore is more Panther sized cars, no matter how they’re driven.
There was an old couple in my grandmothers condo that used to drive a super clean beige 1st gen Accord sedan, I used to see it for years, and then it and the owners were gone, I assume that they may have gone to a home or to live with their kids maybe. I was always curious if they wanted to sell it, it would have made a neat little run around car, though as as others have said, they are really light and fragile in todays 4000lb plus crossover/minvan traffic.
I had a 4 door Accord of this vintage. When you jacked the car up to change/rotate tires the car flexed so much, if you opened a door on the jacked up side you couldn’t close it.
That Accord sure is a charming looking little thing, isn’t it???
This 1979 Accord is a carbon copy of the one a colleague bought new back in the day. It replaced a 1969 Barracuda convertible, if you please (mileage was on everyone’s mind in the malaise era). The only problem is she got the two-speed “automatic” which was a POS and convinced her to move over to Toyota shortly thereafter. I still think it is a nice looking little car. I see this one (Chris’s car) is featured over on cargurus.com
The first generation Honda Accords were certainly great cars for their time, but they were not perfect, if I remember correctly the engine put out 68 hp, the automatic was a two-speed unit (shades of powerglide!) If I remember correctly, the dealer installed a/c was built by Volkswagen and the compressor was driven by the timing belt…from what I read at the time the VW a/c was apparently not especially reliable. They were also tremendously rust-prone, about every Accord I saw in the early 80’s was suffering from an advanced case of tinworm disease.
All things considered, I’ll ignore all the blathering about the “good old days”….I’ll definitely choose the Fit over the 1st generation Accords, in all respects I think it’s a far superior vehicle.
Sorry Hondas A/C was by Nippondenso (with it’s own belt), and properly integrated in the car at a time when those of many non-US manufactures were still an unreliable tack-on afterthought.
Sure they rusted, what didn’t in the ’70’s this side of a Volvo.
Small-car automatics of the day generally were terrible dynamically, bought & intended for people who didn’t drive (why do you think they survive in that condition?), but cheap, simple & fairly reliable.. anyone want to rebuild a modern one?
At 900kg they were nice & light when a Fit is now over 1100kg, but still aimed for a solid feel (they had 700kg Civic for flimsy, & had 550kg N600 tinfoil before that for ultimate efficiency) but could achieve 30-41 EPA MPG. and may have been low on power thanks to typical period emissions-strangling, but still prioritized torque for ease of driving.
I have a Vtec CR-X, I prefer to drive my old Accord and couldn’t consider a box like the Fit, it’s too big, bulky & utilitarian.
This just makes me grin. The fact that the first-gen Accord is still on the road and looks as good as it does is worthy of notice — particularly given the rust issues these cars faced. As for their use as a daily driver, I can only offer my own experience with my similar, but not quite the same 1982 Prelude. It’s no speedster, but it is peppy enough to merge on a highway, even with an automatic (three speed in my case). The power to weight ratio is pretty decent given the car’s light weight. You have to be realistic about how often to drive them and under which type of conditions. Living in the upper Midwest, I garage my Prelude for the winter. I don’t use it for long distance, multi-hour travel — but I do take it out on the highway for fun and to do errands around town.
Hondas from this earlier era had personality — an eagerness that makes driving them fun. Only a few of the current Honda models still have that DNA, and the Fit is probably one of them. Otherwise, the march of time and safety has made most Hondas a lot less engaging. Safer, yes, but not all that different from a lot of other run of the mill drivers.
Agreed — the Accord is super fun to drive. It just has a “real” feeling that’s like very few cars today. And it’s most definitely not a daily driver. I have a newer Acura for that. It sounds like you use your Prelude a lot more than I’ve used my Accord, which is awesome. I think it’s great for these older cars to get used and enjoyed!