My parents have owned an ‘07 since new.  It’s been a reliable and efficient runabout, and modestly fun.  But it’s miserable on the highway, and overall a poor replacement for the ‘90 Civic Wagon that preceded it.  So it’s been practical and frugal, but not particularly fun or satisfying like Hondas of yore.

The weight difference was basically negligible. The Civic wagon was 2350lb iirc, the Fit is 2450ish(?). No, the difference was the Civic’s hydraulic steering, the double wishbone front suspension and independent rear (Fit is mac strut front, torsion bar rear). The Fit employs vertical space to package passengers…

They make them with a stick?

Honestly the first gen cars were far from “enthusiast” choices. Just a cheap light runabout that’s kind of/sort of fun to fling around. Our ‘07 felt like a notable downgrade from our old ‘90 Civic Wagon:
Completely lifeless electric power steering, higher center of gravity, more lean, worse visibility. At least ours…

Why do you need rear disks on a light economy car?

The reason sales have been slumping is that it’s been a fairly strong economy with cheap credit and cheap gas.  All the small cars are doing poorly.

We replaced a ‘90 Wagon with a ‘07 Fit and were left quite wanting on the fun to drive front. Completely lifeless electric power steering, higher center of gravity, more lean, worse visibility. At least ours was a stick (smooth but awfully light and toy-like shifter, stupid-light and hard to modulate clutch), whereas…

“ergonomic as hell”

For anyone over 5' 9" or so, absolutely NOT.  Not sure if they’ve gotten any better, but the older ones are absolutely dreadful for taller people behind the wheel.  Lack of thigh support and weird pedal placement makes it downright painful to hold the accelerator at a steady state on the highway…

Cry more

They care enough to want a larger roomier car with a higher seating position that they prefer to drive. You prefer to drive a car on track.  Are you that brain dead?

Wouldn’t you say tracking your car is a pretty wasteful activity? What does your Civic get at the track in terms of MPG? Mid teens at best? You giving some poor schmuck a hard time over his getting RAv4 3 mpg less than a Camry while tracking your car is absolutely laughable. What gives you this privilege?  “Everyone…

I hope you’re self aware enough to realize that your Civic, at 22/28mpg, is literally worse in terms of fuel economy (especially factoring in premium fuel) than a non-Hybrid Rav4 or CRV that you seem to loathe so much. It’s also the same length.

You invalidated your whole initial premise.  Unless you’re getting on that…

“Civic Type R”

I see you don’t actually own a car and are approximately 12 years old and get all of your knowledge from Top Gear.

Cool story bro

By your logic, do you drive a Geo Metro? You don’t need any more space than that dude. And see my other reply to you, a compact crossover is literally a foot shorter than a midsize sedan, and the fuel economy gap is trivial these days. “Several billions” of gallons of gas a year? Hardly. We’re not talking about…

“It’s a waste of space/gas.”

Length of 2020 Camry: 192.7 inches

A 12 year old’s take (or sarcastic)

“But is a 2009 Civic less boring than a 2009 Focus or cobalt? Yeah, I think so.”

Why?

“except for maybe slightly more storage space.”
For hauling awkwardly shaped larger items from Ikea, Lowes, etc, that hatchback/wagon type space of a typical modern crossover is pretty invaluable. I bought a 30 inch vanity last weekend and initially went to the store in our Camry, fairly confident that it would fit (in…