Honda Moved the Jazz’s Fuel Tank, and Suddenly the Back Seats Could Do This

Honda Jazz Magic Seats can fold flat or lift their rear cushions upward to make space for tall objects. A fuel tank mounted beneath the front seats helps make this possible by freeing space below the rear bench. 

Buying a plant can reveal quite a lot about a car. The pot fits through the boot opening, but the leaves don’t. Lay it down and soil threatens to escape. Someone ends up holding it at an uncomfortable angle while insisting that the journey home isn’t very long.

A Jazz offers another possibility. Open a rear door, lift the seat cushion and put the plant on the floor behind the front seats.

That upward movement is the clever part. Plenty of small cars let you fold their rear backrests forward. Honda also lets you move the cushions out of the way, opening a taller space within the passenger compartment. The company calls them Magic Seats, although the explanation is satisfyingly mechanical.

The fuel tank occupies space beneath the front seats rather than the rear bench. Honda’s engineers therefore had more freedom to use the area under the back seats for something else. In this case, that something else was luggage. 

Once you have seen it demonstrated, a boot-capacity figure feels like a rather incomplete description of practicality. Litres can tell you how much space exists, but they say little about the shape of it or how easily an awkward object will fit through the door.

The Jazz’s tall loading arrangement is particularly useful for things that prefer to remain upright. A plant is the obvious example, though the same principle applies to other bulky objects whose height creates more trouble than their width. Everything still needs to fit securely, without obstructing the driver or becoming loose cargo.

For longer loads, the seats offer their more familiar fold-flat arrangement. Honda retained both possibilities in the hybrid Jazz, so choosing the hybrid did not mean giving up the feature that made the cabin so useful. 

If you are viewing a used example, ask for a demonstration. Operate the seats yourself, check that they lock into position and picture the things you actually carry. That tells you considerably more than looking into an empty boot.

A fuel tank is rarely the part of a car anyone gets excited about. In the Jazz, its location is worth knowing. It explains why the little Honda sometimes swallows an object that has just defeated a much larger car.