If you haven't already bought a Fit, here is some food for thought.
1. MPG - EPA are low!, They must drive the hell out of it. I have driven this car(2008 manuel) hard and have gotten no worse than 34mpg, but with normal driving for me, I get 38-40 mpg, and when i have really babied it up to 45 mpg. Its for real, and guess what there will be a 2009 honda fit hybrid!! I believe your best bet is a manuel, if you want to get the best MPG, and you will save $800 dollars with the manuel transmission
2. Interior, nothing to fancy, but what would you expect for less than 17K for the Fit Sport. layout is good, magic seats are magic as the gas tank is under the passenger front seat to allow the back seat to very low, giving you an enormous amount of space. all my coworkers are amazed at the space when rear seats are down.
3. Reviews of this car have been stellar, Rated #1 best subcompact.
4. Extremely safe with side curtain airbags, I don't believe any other car in this price range has the feature standard. crash testing was very good
5. Honda - very good track record with their cars
6. Appeal - looks. People seem to either love it or hate it. I personally am not caught in the "wow look at my BIG expensive car" attitude that many people have. Many of these people are in debt up to their ears because of this attitude, and i have yet to see a cemetary that will allow someone to be buried in their SUV. sorry i will get off my soapbox(Anti-SUV)! I would admit that the Sport model clearly looks much better than the base and is only marginally more expensive. As well there are a few options that make it a bit more sporty as well, - sport grill, muffuler tip, ect.
I spent probably 1 year researching many different cars in this class, the Fit was the clear winner! good luck Peter
