All-New 2015 Honda Fit Earns a 2014 TOP SAFETY PICK Rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

TORRANCE, Calif., Aug. 21, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The 2015 Honda Fit (http://automobiles.honda.com/fit/), the standout choice in the subcompact segment, has received a 2014 TOP SAFETY PICK rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). This includes a top rating of GOOD in four IIHS crash test modes and an ACCEPTABLE score in the Insurance Institute's stringent small overlap frontal crash test. No vehicle in its class has received a higher rating than Fit in this IIHS test procedure.

"Honda's deep-rooted commitment to safety and to our customers is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that we were not satisfied with anything but a TOP SAFETY PICK for the new 2015 Honda Fit," said Art St. Cyr, vice president of auto operations at American Honda. "Vehicle by vehicle, our engineers are passionate about developing safety technologies that consumers have come to trust and expect from Honda."

An early-production 2015 Honda Fit was originally tested in March for the 2014 award year by IIHS and earned a GOOD in four out of five IIHS crash test modes and a MARGINAL score in the challenging small overlap frontal crash test. Demonstrating a strong commitment to safety, Honda engineers responded quickly with a modification to the Fit's front bumper structure. Subsequent testing by IIHS confirmed the success of the design change, which has been incorporated into new vehicle production.

"Though there is no regulatory requirement to do this, in keeping with Honda's long-standing commitment to safety and focus on its customers, Honda has voluntarily engineered a product update which will allow all early-production vehicles to share the 2014 TOP SAFETY PICK rating," said St. Cyr.

In addition to changes in production models, approximately 12,000 early-production 2015 Honda Fit vehicles will be eligible for a product update involving a front bumper beam replacement, which will be completed free of charge at any Honda dealer in the United States. This update allows all early-production vehicles to qualify for a TOP SAFETY PICK rating and the same score in the small overlap test as recently built models. Honda is announcing this voluntary product update to encourage all owners that purchased an early-production vehicle to take their new Fit to an authorized dealer as soon as they receive notification of this update from Honda. At that time, Fit owners will also have access to a special phone line that will allow them to determine if their vehicle is eligible for the update or if it already has the updated bumper design from the factory. Customers can access this information beginning in late-September by calling (800) 999-1009, and selecting option 4.

About the Fit
Already the benchmark subcompact in terms of passenger and cargo space and innovative features, occupant safety for the 2015 Honda Fit is further enhanced through the next-generation Advanced Compatibility Engineering™ (ACE™) body structure. The next-generation ACE^™ body structure improves frontal crash energy management through a wider range of offset and oblique collision modes. In addition, other body reinforcements work in tandem with the strengthened body structure to better maintain the occupant compartment volume during frontal collisions by providing additional crash energy pathways to help mitigate the forces transmitted to the passenger compartment.

Key New Safety and Driver-Assistive Features:
In addition to including the next-generation Advanced Compatibility Engineering™ (ACE™) body-structure, the 2015 Fit features a host of standard active and passive safety features and includes many standard and available driver-assistive technologies.

• Driver and Front Passenger SmartVent™ Side Airbags
• Side Curtain Airbags with Rollover Sensor
• Motion-Adaptive Electric Power Steering (EPS) – a feature of VSA
• Hill Start Assist
• Expanded View Driver's Mirror
• Honda LaneWatch^TM
• Multi-Angle Rearview Camera with Guidelines

Standard safety equipment on all 2015 Honda and Acura models includes the next-generation of Honda's ACE™ body structure, Vehicle Stability Assist™ (VSA®) with traction control; an Anti-lock Braking System (ABS); side curtain airbags (some vehicles equipped with a rollover sensor as well); dual-stage, multiple-threshold front airbags; and front side airbags.

About Honda
Honda has a long history of leadership in the development and application of advanced technologies designed to enhance the safety of all road users, including automobile occupants, motorcycle riders and pedestrians. The company operates two of the world's most sophisticated crash test facilities, in Ohio and Japan, and is responsible for numerous pioneering efforts in the areas of crashworthiness, airbag technology, collision compatibility and pedestrian safety.

Based in part on advancements to Honda's Advanced Compatibility Engineering™ (ACE™) body structure, American Honda today leads the industry in third-party crash test ratings, with more models achieving top safety ratings from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) than any other automaker. The company also is broadly applying advanced driver-assistive technologies such as LaneWatch, Forward Collision Warning and Lane Departure Warning to its product lineup. Also, Honda has applied rearview cameras as standard equipment to all of its light truck models and 95 percent of its passenger cars for model year 2014, and will achieve 100-percent application by 2015.

(1) Based on 2014 Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) TOP SAFETY PICK and TOP SAFETY PICK+ ratings as of 8/21/2014, by brand for vehicles manufactured in the United States.  Honda and Acura vehicles are produced using domestic and globally sourced parts.

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SOURCE Honda