By BENJAMIN PRESTONAPRIL 16, 2014  The 2015 Honda Fit at the New York Auto Show. To control the view of the car, click on the image and move the cursor left or right.  Photographs by Benjamin Norman for The New York Times  True to its name, the 2015 Honda Fit just fits. It’s a small car, and accordingly, weaves through tight urban spaces with ease. But for something so tiny, it has a lot of space inside – not just the kind that looks good in brochures, but the sort that makes drivers feel at ease, like they have finally escaped the womblike experience so many automakers offer, even on much larger cars.  Honda gave journalists an opportunity to drive the new Fit, which was unveiled at the Detroit auto show in January, in New York on Tuesday. Although the journey consisted of only a quick drive up Manhattan’s West Side Highway, some city driving on the Upper West Side and another cruise south to Midtown, the car was comfortable and fun to drive.  The manual transmission and C.V.T. models were capable, providing power from the 130-horsepower 1.5-liter dual-overhead-cam 4-cylinder engine quickly and without complaint. The C.V.T. posts better fuel economy numbers – 33 miles per gallon in the city and 41 on the highway, compared with the 6-speed manual transmission-equipped model’s 29 m.p.g. city, 37 highway – but C.V.T.s are, by their nature, unexciting. This one was certainly not as lackluster as most and took all of the stress out of driving in stop-and-go city traffic.  The manual transmission Honda has installed in its new, Mexico-built Fit requires little thought or patience to operate, and gives the driver more control. Revs tend to stay high for a second as the clutch is depressed and the accelerator released for a shift, but the shifts are smooth. Not all drivers will agree, but the zippy little econobox seemed a lot more fun with the 6-speed.  With either transmission, the car accelerated quickly and handled well, even on New York City’s potholed pavement. Honda says it made improvements to the suspension and steering systems, and whatever the automaker did seems to have worked. It held a line well through fast curves on patched sections of the West Side Highway. The steering was light and responsive.  What really sets the new Fit apart, though, is its interior space. The car is 160 inches long, 67 inches wide, 60 inches tall and has a 99.6-inch wheelbase. That makes it a couple of inches shorter and a bit wider than the model on its way out, and Honda has reconfigured the interior to increase passenger volume, front shoulder room and rear leg room.  But the difference is in how it feels. For example, the dashboard is, as it is in so many cars whose windshields have been steeply raked for better aerodynamics, fairly deep. But it doesn’t feel like it’s protruding into the passenger’s space. A low console between the driver and passenger seats does away with the fencelike dividers that seem to pen drivers and passengers into their respective corners in so many other cars. The dashboard is simple and well laid out, with mostly analog gauges arranged symmetrically in front of the driver.  The seats can be folded in a variety of different ways to maximize space and provide options for different configurations of passengers and stuff. The rear seats fold flat – more or less – and a 5-foot-8-inch person can just lie down diagonally across the extended cargo compartment. Honda says the front and rear seats can be laid flat to increase front-to-back storage space, and its brochure shows surfboards and other fun-looking outdoor activity gear stretched out next to the driver’s seat.  Not everyone has been a fan of the Fit’s snub-nose styling, but the new model features clean, simple lines and a tastefully conservative look that will most likely age well. It has a lot less of the goofiness that seems to plague subcompacts because of a taller hood, sharper corners and slightly more aggressive face, and it’s available with 16-inch alloy wheels that give it a more snappy appearance.  But styling goes only skin deep. A big concern of many people when buying a small car that will be driven among so many much larger ones will undoubtedly be safety. The 2013 Fit, the model crash-tested by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, was a Top Safety Pick, scoring well in all tests but the difficult-to-master small overlap front crash test, in which it received a Poor rating by the group.  A camera mounted in the passenger-side mirror activates when the right turn signal is flipped on, providing a wide-angle view of the car’s blind spot on the dash-mounted display screen. Whether this is helpful or distracting is up for debate, as looking down at the screen takes your eyes off the road, too. It’s an interesting idea, though.  The 2015 Fit gave a good first impression in this brief encounter. We’ll see how it eventually does in a longer test.
The Fit features sharper styling and a revised interior layout that makes it feel much larger than it is.