Quality Interior

The interior is where observers were most pleasantly surprised, thanks to a clean design, good materials and construction, and a mostly quiet cabin, excepting the occasional engine rumble mentioned above. I particularly liked the cloth seats and the sparing use of relatively convincing faux aluminum on the dashboard. The surfaces are soft to the touch where it matters most — on the armrests and such. The steering wheel tilts and telescopes; it's leather-wrapped in all but the manual S trim level, and audio controls are standard across the board. The Kizashi SE adds cruise control.

Heated leather seats come on the SLS trim level along with a power front passenger seat, but the cloth driver's seat includes 10-way power adjustment, lumbar control and three memory positions on all but Kizashi S. The S has a manual driver's height adjustment. The seats are comfortable. Given its smaller exterior size, the Kizashi's roominess isn't bad at all, though the class leaders beat it by an inch or more in most seating dimensions. Two backseat passengers thought the legroom was a bit snug, but when I moved the front seats forward a bit, all was well. I actually prefer the backrest angle over that of the Accord, which leans back too much. A tall floor hump in the backseat makes the center seat even less desirable than usual. Another complication involves the detachable center belt, whose anchor is mounted so far to one side, it's uncomfortable for the window-seat passenger.