Sleepin’ With the Fishes: Honda Fit, Civic Coupe, Manual Accord Get Whacked

Honda today announced plans for many of its cars for the 2021 model year, and among the announcements of new features and updates was some sad news: The Fit subcompact hatchback and Civic coupe are being discontinued, as are manual versions of the Accord mid-size sedan. Time to pour one (or three) out.

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Look How They Massacred My Boy!

Losing the Fit is a disappointment, though we weren’t exactly surprised. Honda redesigned the Fit for other regions for the 2020 model year but not for the U.S. — and this was before COVID-19 screwed up everyone’s plans.

The Fit is a fun little city car with remarkable utility — Cars.com even owned one, and I miss it dearly — but according to Honda, more entry-level buyers are flocking to the HR-V subcompact SUV (the Fit’s SUV equivalent) and Civic hatchback, the latter of which Honda says outsells the Fit by a 2-to-1 ratio. (All will be forgiven, Honda, if you bring the e Prototype electric hatchback here in its place … which probably isn’t in the cards, unfortunately, but we can dream.)

This Makes the Civic Coupe Fredo, I Guess?

The story is similar for the Civic coupe, which is also outsold by the Civic hatch. Honda says that since this generation of Civic was introduced for the 2016 model year, hatchbacks have grown to 24% of all Civic sales while coupe sales have declined to 6% now from 16% in 2016.

What does this mean for the sportier Civic Si, which was offered in sedan and coupe body styles? According to Honda, Civic Si production will “pause” after the 2020 model year as Honda prepares the next-generation Civic, “including a new Civic Si sedan.” Will we get the Si in hatchback form with the next generation, or will the hatch be reserved for the higher-performance Type R? Honda isn’t saying, yet — though it is saying that the “Civic hatchback will assume the position of the sporty and personal choice in the Civic lineup.”

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• 2021 Honda Pilot Commits to 9-Speed Automatic Transmission, Adds Special Edition and Content to Base Model

And After We Just Named the Manual Accord a Future Classic, Too

One more disappointment from Honda came in the announcement that the manual Accord would be discontinued — not surprising given Honda’s claim that manual sales accounted for 1-2% of the Accord’s sales total. In fact, demand was so low that Honda says it stopped even building manual Accords in December 2019. We didn’t know this would happen when we called it a potential future classic on National Stick Shift Day, but again, this isn’t a surprising development. Rest assured, however, that Honda isn’t giving up on the manual transmission entirely — at least for now.

“Manual transmissions will remain an important part of the Honda lineup, currently available in [the] Civic sedan, hatchback, Si and Type R,” Honda said in a statement. “Enthusiast consumers have long reaped the rewards of this commitment, and those buyers helped make Honda the retail No. 1 manual-transmission brand in America in 2019.”

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