“I always said ‘It’ll fit in the Fit.'”
A Florida sculptor packed his Honda Fit to the roof with scrap lumber and said it was proof that no one who owns one needs a truck. He also offered a related piece of driving advice: go easy on the brakes. By his reckoning the wood weighed 1,000 pounds.
Andrew Glubbey (@glubbey), whose bio reads “Florida Man and Pear Car driver,” posted the 13-second clip that has since drawn more than 4.3 million views. “You do not need a truck when you have a Honda Fit,” he says, walking up to the open hatch of a silver Fit at night. “A thousand pounds of wood in the Honda Fit.”
The cargo area is filled to the headliner with lumber offcuts and a few short logs. He swings around to the open passenger door, where boards run over the front seat and a miter saw is riding shotgun. He then pans back to show more boards, several with nails still in them, stacked as high as the headrests. “Just remember, don’t hit the brakes too hard,” he says.
Glubbey is a sculptor from Merritt Island, Florida who spent this summer riding a pear-shaped shell he built over a scooter from Florida toward Seattle. The wood has a purpose, he told commenters: “I’m building the world’s largest pear shaped house with this wood!”
What Honda Says A Fit Can Carry
Honda’s owner’s manual for the 2020 Fit says “the maximum load for your vehicle is 850 lbs,” a figure that “includes the total weight of all occupants, cargo, and accessories.” Manuals for the 2016 through 2019 model years give the same number. If Glubbey’s estimate is right, the lumber was well over the limit before he or the saw got in, and it added more than a third to the weight of a car that Honda lists at 2,522 to 2,648 pounds. One viewer even doubted the figure. “Nowhere near 1,000 but aight,” wrote shmeezy89.
The manual has another line that Glubbey might want to review. “Do not pile items higher than the seat height,” it says. “They can block your view and may be thrown forward in the event of sudden braking.” A warning box adds that “overloading or improper loading can affect handling and stability and cause a crash in which you can be hurt or killed.”
Honda did sell the Fit as a capable hauler. Its guide to the car’s folding “Magic Seat” promises “a cavernous 52.7 cubic feet behind the front seats,” and describes a “Long Mode,” with the front passenger seat tilted all the way back, as “perfect for those who need to carry long items like lumber.” One commenter, rimunroe, had found it: “You can get even more, longer lumber in if you take the headrest off the passenger seat and fully recline it!”
Is It Dangerous To Haul That Much Weight In A Honda Fit?
A comment with more than 119,000 likes simply quoted him back. “You do NOT need a truck when you have a Honda Fit,” wrote jacedigman0508. Another, from charliebravos, pictured what comes next: “Bro after the first stop sign.”
A run of commenters referenced Final Destination, the horror movie franchise whose second film opens with logs falling from a truck, an image IndieWire wrote “has been making drivers avoid logging trucks on the freeway since 2003.”
“Dude literally put Final Destination in his car,” wrote iiinone2.
Fit owners showed up to vouch for the vehicle. “I miss my Honda Fit!” wrote touch.my.tooter. “I always said ‘It’ll fit in the Fit’ (and 99% of the time, it did!)” Another, clubeggie, listed “a washer AND dryer, a 75 gallon fishtank, and an industrial table for my laser cutter.” A third owner, alliebounce, added a condition: “I have the exact same car and truly you can fit anything in it as long as you do not fear death.”
Others had seen how it can end in tears.
“I used to do this, I lived next to the lumber mill,” wrote vali_forest. “Anyway, my axle broke in half on the freeway and I went careening across all the lanes, and don’t do this, OK.” The nails worried rattrapcereal: “The rusty nails that are perfectly at neck/head height is frying me.”
And barthalamewbear offered a sensible rule of thumb: “Just because Honda fit doesn’t mean Honda should.”
Motor1 reached out to Glubbey via Instagram direct message. We’ll be sure to update this if he responds.
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