Honda Fit Takes on the Dreaded Moose Test

Check out how well a Honda Fit can evade the sudden appearance of the rarely-seen Spanish moose.

Unless it took a serious wrong turn while on Holiday in France, you won’t actually find a moose in Spain. However, like anyone else wanting to do the obstacle evasion test, Madrid based km77.com simply used cones placed in an S shape for their video rather than drive around waiting for a moose to leap out in front of them. The idea being that a moose isn’t likely to stop moving like a reversing car or a pedestrian stepping into the road would, therefore the car has to swerve all the way into the next lane and swerve back again.

For history nuts, the test has been around since the 1970’s, but it wasn’t known as the moose test until the mid-1990s. It originated in Sweden, but it was a German newspaper pushed the colloquialism into common parlance when, during the test, the Swedish publication Teknikens Värld flipped a Mercedes A-Class over.

As the video demonstrates, not only does the Honda Fit (Known as the Honda Jazz in Europe) not flip over like a 1990’s Mercedes, but at 50 mph when it’s steering wheel is yanked one way and then the other, it doesn’t scrub off much speed at all. In the video, they even talk about how forgiving the Fit is of driver mistakes. They kept cranking up the speed for the Fit to enter the moose test, and it kept staying in the safe zone past where km77.com has seen more expensive cars start to get cone rash or even cross into the third lane. They praise the Fit for its grip as well as how the chassis fluidly changes direction.

In the slalom test, they carry on with their praise. Not just in the grip and the way it changes direction, but also in how it links turns at high speed. Understandably, they do point out that the lack of stiffness in the suspension is the limit of the chassis. After all, it is a town car, and not a race car although they also note it does have a sporty touch that we love.

Join the Honda-tech forums today!

Ian Wright

Ian Wright has been a professional writer for two years and is a regular contributor to Corvette Forum, Jaguar Forum, and 6SpeedOnline, among other auto sites.

His obsession with cars started young and has left him stranded miles off-road in Land Rovers, being lost far from home in hot hatches, going sideways in rallycross cars, being propelled forward in supercars and, more sensibly, standing in fields staring at classic cars. His first job was as a mechanic and then trained as a driving instructor before going into media production.

The automotive itch never left though, and he realized writing about cars is his true calling. However, that doesn’t stop him from also hosting the Both Hand Drive podcast.

Ian can be reached at bothhanddrive@gmail.com