Rallycrossing my 2003 Honda Civic at a Detroit Region SCCA rallycross.
I had sold my Focus ST for way too cheap, and a new ND Miata replaced it as my dual purpose daily driver and Street class autocross car. Then came the fateful day where my Miata got totaled, and I was out of a daily driver. I had my Corvette Z06 at the time, which (briefly) became my primary autocross car, so all I really needed was an every day commuter.
Daily drivers don’t get more simple than Honda Civics.
I bought this particular example because it was super clean for a Michigan car — I looked all over and couldn’t find any rust on the body or the underside, which blew me away — and because it was a stick. (If you haven’t noticed, outside of my very first car, my 1991 Subaru Legacy, all 13 cars I had owned since have been manual transmission cars only!) It was cheap, and it came with a second set of steelies with snow tires, so it seemed a no-brainer that I’d bring the car home.
Also important was the fact that I didn’t need to wrench on the car. At the time, I had my two Subaru XT Turbos collecting dust in the back of the garage, a 1966 Ford Mustang that was partially disassembled at the front, a 1967 Morgan Plus 4 parked next to it, and a perpetually leaking Corvette Z06 that had to live outside in the driveway. I already had my hands (more than) full trying to keep all of my projects going, and I didn’t want the daily driver to become a project itself.
To the car’s credit, it performed the duty of basic everyday driver perfectly well. I only ever added fuel and changed the oil. As a result, this particular COAL is going to be a lot shorter than most of my other ones.
Rallycrossing the car
Naturally, I can’t let a car come into the fleet without beating on the thing a little bit in some form of motorsport. Being a super cheap little car with super cheap winter tires, it was a natural fit for rallycross. I took it to a couple of rallycrosses and had some good fun with the car.
The Civic, with its homebrew light bar, at the hotel with other rallycrossers for a 2-day weekend rallycross event.
I even fashioned a light bar for the Civic that mounted to the steel hood with the help of powerful magnets. I festooned the car with cheap eBay LED lamps, and the setup worked well enough for the occasional night rallycross I ran with the Detroit Region SCCA.
Getting bored of the car
The smart thing to do would be to hang on to the Civic until it rusted back into the ground, but the Civic barely lasted more than a few months in my fleet.
Even now, it vexes me as to why I didn’t connect with the Civic. My Focus SE was also a Regular Normal Car, yet I remember that car very fondly and still wish I had it. The current classic car in the fleet (and subject of a future COAL) is also a Regular Normal Car with absolutely no sporting pretensions whatsoever, yet I love the thing to death. The Civic had a brilliant little motor, a great shifting transmission, and had a little bit of pep in its step. This was the kind of car I thought I’d love, but didn’t.
Maybe I had gotten too used to modern conveniences in my winter drivers? As I had a string of late model cars for daily drivers, I was used to having bluetooth capable stereos, sound deadening out the wazoo, and heated seats. Perhaps the Civic was too much of a penalty box for the daily commute? Then again, I willingly drove a ’66 Mustang with no A/C to California and back, and to Alaska and back, so maybe the modern conveniences theory doesn’t hold water.
I think what did the Civic in was that it was simply too good at being an anonymous car. Driving the car never made me feel special in a way that driving any of the other cars in my fleet did. It’s not the car’s fault — its only objective in life is to be an unfailingly dependable daily driver, and it’s my demands that it be fun or special that are unreasonable and out of scope. But what ultimately did in the Civic was what ultimately did in the Focus SE as well: I decided that life was too short to drive boring cars.
Having churned though a couple cars to reach this conclusion, I decided that the correct answer was to dump the Civic and replace it with something more fun, and then stick with that car until I got my money’s worth out of it.
Winter wasn’t even over when I found the Civic’s replacement. Naturally, after buying this brand new car, issues immediately cropped up — and the car proved to be way more unreliable than the old Civic could ever dream of being. But, three years later, I still have it.
The cursed Corvette Z06, the Honda Civic behind it, and way at the back, the Civic’s replacement.
Proof perhaps that personality and charm are enough to endear a car to my heart, while cold rationality isn’t.
I have an 01 DX 5 speed bought new that now has 256k miles. While it can be pretty boring, the gear box is primo, I just love rolling into 2nd gear at a light on a hill, or maybe 3rd gear then skipping to 5th. The car has become almost invisible in its reliability. When something needed fixing, I’d think, it’s always in the shop, then check and find it’s been almost a year and 15k miles since it was serviced. While it may have the personality of a toaster, I’ve probably had my toaster 25 years…
Wasn’t this the generation of Civic that replaced the double wishbones up front for struts?
My daughter has been driving a 98 that came from her grandmother. I spent a summer with it when she took my newer Fit out of state for an internship. The Civic is an automatic, which took a lot of the fun out of it, and I also discovered that it lacked almost all of the sporting zip that makes my Fit so fun to drive. I concluded that it is a better highway cruiser than my Fit, but I was thrilled to swap back with her at the end of the summer.
But it is as reliable as the day is long and at over 20 years old (and still under 100K, I think) it just keeps doing what it is supposed to do. Fortunately, she does not require interesting (although she gripes about the boring silver paint).
Yep, 2001 saw the end of the double wishbones up front. Really didn’t seem to matter though. Boring, but reliable as hell. Each of my sons had one of this generation. One auto, one stick. Both LX models, which got you A/C, power windows and mirrors. Move up to the EX and you got a sunroof. The one kid was not exactly meticulous about maintenance, going 15,000 miles or so between oil changes. Didn’t seem to matter much. Still went 130,000 miles with zero issues until he traded it.
I bought a new ‘82 Civic in late 1981. Stick shift, of course, and I too autocrossed it; in fact it gave me my first and only SCCA regional class win. 44K troublefree miles in two years including several road trips with long stretches of dirt roads and deep snow, and excellent mpg. But I never clicked with it either and replaced it with my first of several pickup trucks. Never owned a Honda (4 wheeled) since.
My current daily driver (and only car) is an ’05 Civic with automatic. 113K on it when I got it around Xmas 2017, 145K now. My previous car had been wrecked, and I had to get something in a hurry.
My take on it is pretty much the same as yours. I figured it would have more pizzazz than, say, a Toyota. Maybe it does, but it doesn’t have much pizzazz on an absolute basis. But it’s good for what it is, and I can’t say I’m disappointed.
In hindsight there are a few other cars I should have had on the shortlist at the time and didn’t.
I was wondering if, or when, you’d get a Fiesta ST. Seems to fit many of your criteria and being a Ford employee…probably better to have in the parking lot.
With that said, it took me a while to connect with our 2012 Accord. But it’s like a faithful companion now and never has let me down.- even when worked hard on the Idaho 2-lanes.
All that $$$$ to buy and insure an unreliable brand-new car.
I’ll take that old Civic any day. I’d rather be bored!
Happy Motoring, Mark
The regular Focus was arguably the hardest car to measure up to, being one of the better (if not the best?) small cars dynamically that the domestics have offered in a long time, but I must say I applaud the fact that you, as a Ford employee, actually own/owned and regularly drive/drove the competition, even if it wasn’t the current model. I think there is a lot to be gained by seeing what else is out there on a daily basis (not just as an example brought in to tear down or try on a limited basis, but actually to live with). It’ll never happen of course but as we were talking about the other day in the book post, Mary Walton’s “Car” has an excellent section that discusses the Ford engineers getting a Camry and many of the executive staff being disdainful of it (beyond a grudging acceptance that it was a good car), i.e. they didn’t really actually live with it and figure out everything that made it such a popular car, one person even refused to properly pronounce the name of it. Not that it would ever happen but from a competitive standpoint almost makes sense to have the people involved with a project really live with the competition’s product while of course being aware that those are at least one design cycle behind of what’s next, otherwise you can end up in your own bubble. Of course a Chevy Cobalt is “better” than a Cavalier if you only look at your own history or products to compare it to, etc without recognizing that the rest of the industry has moved well beyond.
This generation and the prior Civic are peak-Civic, in my mind. Unapologetic in their lack of personality, yet incredibly apathetic to those drivers looking for slightly more than Corolla-levels of driving engagement and even, dare I say, reliability. Nearly every aspect of these cars is inexpensive to maintain or repair, and they ask for so little of either.
If you lived through the ascension of Japanese automobiles in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, these were the fully-realized promise of compact, honest, reliable motoring with all of Honda’s attention to detail. If you weren’t paying that much attention, you quietly owned one of the best vehicles ever made.
*empathetic*
“Perfect but boring” is often my description of my 2019 Toyota Camry.
Not really a put-down; just an “Real World Correct” observation.
I do enjoy my older cars from the 1960’s/70’s/80’s; but I also require one new(er) car that will always start immediately on the first try, stop in a straight line, never over-heat in traffic and must posses a freezing c-c-cold air conditioner.
I’m sure those last two considerations are important in New Orleans!
A few years ago I had a rental Nissan Versa for a few summer days, and the a/c didn’t cut it even in Seattle. Note to self: do not consider a Versa next time you need a car.
Yup! An astute observation, Staxman.
The extended “Summer” season in #NOLA can run from early April until mid November.
A/C has become a near-necessity, in your home and vehicles, for most of the residents here in the humidity core of the southeast.
A/C can be used just for humidity control here 11 months out of the year.
Last month my little Auntie died and left me her 2001 Civic. It has 73,000 kilometers, was maintained well and always parked underground, and is almost flawless. It even smells like a new car. It drives and handles like it should.
When I picked it up last week it had been sitting for months and none of the heat controls worked, as some of the actuator doors were slightly stuck; a problem that resolved itself quickly.
The only remaining problem is that it’s exceptionally boring to be in and to drive. In fact, it makes me miss my 2007 Focus wagon, a car with no shortage of personality.
I’ll need to decide what to do with her. It’s like having a beautiful, charming, faithful girlfriend that I simply don’t love. Maybe I’ll call her Betty.