This blue beauty is a Honda Fit Saloon, with black license plates, as seen in the far west of the Chinese capital Beijing. The Fit was in fine shape for its age. The paint was slightly fading, but I didn’t see any rust or busts, and it still had the original wheel covers.
The Honda Fit Saloon was based on the fourth-generation Honda City sedan. It was made in China by the Guangzhou-Honda joint venture from 2004 until 2007. The ‘Saloon’ name was used only in China. It was the first locally-made compact Honda sedan, and it was an immediate success, selling in high numbers all over the country.
It is easy to understand why. The Fit Saloon was a perfectly sized and perfectly priced sedan that was cheap to run and very reliable. At the time, Chinese consumers very much preferred sedans over hatchbacks, and Japanese brands still had a very good reputation.
The interior was in fine shape too, as far as I could see. The window was covered by a sun deflector, and the owner had fitted a full set of new seat covers, including neck pillows.
It is extremely rare to find a Fit Saloon in this shape on the road today. Many of these older cars have long been scrapped or sold to other provinces. It is not easy to find parts either, and you have to find a specialist car shop to work on it. The Guangzhou-Honda joint venture still exists, now called GAC-Honda, but dealers usually don’t maintain older cars. So the owner must love his/her old Honda, and for that, we can only applaud.
The famous black license plates were issued to foreign-owned companies from the 1980s to the mid-’00s. These companies could buy a car locally or import one. There were no limits on the number of cars, price, or engine type. Each province and municipality had its own black-license plate program. The numbering started at A·00001 and then up. So the lower the number the older the car. This Honda Fit has 京A·51327. Earlier on, I also met a Guangzhou Honda Fit hatchback with black plates.
The characters are: 广州, Guangzhou. The very early cars had 广州-Honda badges. Later on, this changed to 广州本田, Guangzhou Bentian, and Bentian is the Chinese name for Honda.
The later badge for comparison.
The Fit Saloon badge was super cool. The Fit-part was in silver, with a super-sized dot above the i. The SALOON part was in capitals, in silver with a black background.
The Honda Fit Saloon was available with 1.3-liter and 1.5-liter engines. Our blue car is a 1.3, with a 5-speed manual transmission (the 1.5 was mated to a CVT). The output of the 1.3 was 82 hp and 116 Nm, good for a 165 km/h top speed and a 0-100 in 14.72 seconds. That was the official number! Not 14, not 14.7, but 14.72. Very precise indeed.
A truly unique Guangzou-Honda Fit Saloon with black license plates. I hope the owner can keep it around for many years more.