Leef
Senior Member
- First Name
- Leef
- Joined
- May 27, 2018
- Threads
- 16
- Messages
- 90
- Reaction score
- 83
- Location
- Eastern PA Delaware River Valley
- Vehicle(s)
- 2018 Civic Si Coupe Modern Steel Metallic
- Thread starter
- #1
I thought it was worth a mention how I went from 2013 Mini Cooper S to a 2018 Civic Si Coupe. I honestly thought that the Cooper would be the car I would drive for the next ten years, but it met it's fate on a country road when a Harley Davidson going the opposite way swerved wide, giving me no options (the guard rail was at the fogline). That I walked away from a head-on collision that wrapped the fenders so tightly around the front door hinges I could barely get out of the car proved the Mini's worth to me. It owed me not a stitch more. No-one died on the road that night - miraculously.
Shopping for the newer models, however, was a big disappointment. They got bigger, more powerful, more luxuriously appointed, more capable in almost every way - and in the process somehow had less fun factor. The character of the 2013 was retro-quirky - the exaggerated center speedometer was a shout out to a genuine rally car heritage. The toggles below it were reminiscent of the switches in the old Austin Coopers that looked like they were installed from a Radio Shack kit. But the models today moved the speedometer in front of the driver - while weirdly enough keeping the circle in the center where they put the radio and added multi-colored disco lights which danced the circumference in beat to the engine revs. The window toggles were moved from the center console to the door as standard BMW switches. The quirkiness was no longer retro-quirky but just cute-quirky - big tail lights adding a cartoonish look to a car that once was more Cooper than BMW. It was as if the car lost its humility and went whole-hog into indulging in it's own adorability. And in the process - for many of us who loved the Cooper - it lost its soul.
But as I pondered the thought there would never be another car like my Mini, I realized that the Civic Si checks many of the same boxes that the Mini did for me. It offers a 6 speed manual as a default (Mini discouraged automatics as an option, and the Civic Si doesn't even give that option). It is a car that may not beat a muscle car in a traffic light drag race but will leave it in the dust on a winding road. It snugs the driver so deeply in bolstered seats that you are not merely sitting in the car - you are immersed in it. It has gas mileage that bespeaks respect to one's carbon footprint. It offers a moon roof as standard equipment knowing that being out in the world is all part of the fun of driving and - hey - want a little wind in your hair to go with those twisties? It presents a nimble little body that nips annoyingly at the hub caps of lumbering 18 mpg SUVs, and it grabs those parallel parking spots that Tundras and Pilots pass in frustration. And it gives the option to go full geek on the infotainment interface (my Mini was geared to iPhone only - but I managed to work my Android into it by hot-spotting an iPod Touch).
The biggest issue for me was going from a vehicle that evoked a drive through the rolling hills of Cotswold in the 1960's to a car that I half-expected to find a flux capacitor under the hood. Looking at the Civics in the Honda dealer lot was like looking at a fleet of Star Wars X-Wing fighters. Then it hit me. While Mini was once upon a time all about heritage and wasn't afraid to scream it out to everyone, the Civic has always been about heritage. Quietly. Steadily. Without boasting. From my first used '75 Civic CVCC 4-on-the-floor roll-up window go-cart to my sister's red 1990 5-speed manual Civic (that is still her daily commuter) to my '91 CRX Si to this new steel gray transformer sitting in my driveway now for barely four days, the Civic has never tried to change it's fundamental bones. It looks different - but looks have never been consistent through all its iterations since the roly-poly, pill-bug versions over four decades ago, even spitting out side variants from the wonderfully tossable CRX to the less spectacular Del Sol. In the final analysis, it has remained true to its essence - a small car that is all about the fun of driving, about connecting with the road instead of insulating itself from it. Its lines have gone from round to sharp to round and back to sharp again. The bells and whistles have changed and certainly multiplied. The creature comforts have as well. But sitting in the drivers seat, all of those Civics of my past are one. This is just the latest member of that family, an heir to the heritage of those ghosts. And just like them, when I strap myself behind the wheel and start the engine - even for the same old commute - it gives me a wink and says, "Hey - let's have some fun."
Shopping for the newer models, however, was a big disappointment. They got bigger, more powerful, more luxuriously appointed, more capable in almost every way - and in the process somehow had less fun factor. The character of the 2013 was retro-quirky - the exaggerated center speedometer was a shout out to a genuine rally car heritage. The toggles below it were reminiscent of the switches in the old Austin Coopers that looked like they were installed from a Radio Shack kit. But the models today moved the speedometer in front of the driver - while weirdly enough keeping the circle in the center where they put the radio and added multi-colored disco lights which danced the circumference in beat to the engine revs. The window toggles were moved from the center console to the door as standard BMW switches. The quirkiness was no longer retro-quirky but just cute-quirky - big tail lights adding a cartoonish look to a car that once was more Cooper than BMW. It was as if the car lost its humility and went whole-hog into indulging in it's own adorability. And in the process - for many of us who loved the Cooper - it lost its soul.
But as I pondered the thought there would never be another car like my Mini, I realized that the Civic Si checks many of the same boxes that the Mini did for me. It offers a 6 speed manual as a default (Mini discouraged automatics as an option, and the Civic Si doesn't even give that option). It is a car that may not beat a muscle car in a traffic light drag race but will leave it in the dust on a winding road. It snugs the driver so deeply in bolstered seats that you are not merely sitting in the car - you are immersed in it. It has gas mileage that bespeaks respect to one's carbon footprint. It offers a moon roof as standard equipment knowing that being out in the world is all part of the fun of driving and - hey - want a little wind in your hair to go with those twisties? It presents a nimble little body that nips annoyingly at the hub caps of lumbering 18 mpg SUVs, and it grabs those parallel parking spots that Tundras and Pilots pass in frustration. And it gives the option to go full geek on the infotainment interface (my Mini was geared to iPhone only - but I managed to work my Android into it by hot-spotting an iPod Touch).
The biggest issue for me was going from a vehicle that evoked a drive through the rolling hills of Cotswold in the 1960's to a car that I half-expected to find a flux capacitor under the hood. Looking at the Civics in the Honda dealer lot was like looking at a fleet of Star Wars X-Wing fighters. Then it hit me. While Mini was once upon a time all about heritage and wasn't afraid to scream it out to everyone, the Civic has always been about heritage. Quietly. Steadily. Without boasting. From my first used '75 Civic CVCC 4-on-the-floor roll-up window go-cart to my sister's red 1990 5-speed manual Civic (that is still her daily commuter) to my '91 CRX Si to this new steel gray transformer sitting in my driveway now for barely four days, the Civic has never tried to change it's fundamental bones. It looks different - but looks have never been consistent through all its iterations since the roly-poly, pill-bug versions over four decades ago, even spitting out side variants from the wonderfully tossable CRX to the less spectacular Del Sol. In the final analysis, it has remained true to its essence - a small car that is all about the fun of driving, about connecting with the road instead of insulating itself from it. Its lines have gone from round to sharp to round and back to sharp again. The bells and whistles have changed and certainly multiplied. The creature comforts have as well. But sitting in the drivers seat, all of those Civics of my past are one. This is just the latest member of that family, an heir to the heritage of those ghosts. And just like them, when I strap myself behind the wheel and start the engine - even for the same old commute - it gives me a wink and says, "Hey - let's have some fun."
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- thank you, John of the now defunct Princeton Mini!). The dealership, however, told me that I had a decision to still make. It was a golden opportunity to replace an almost 60k clutch and save several hundreds in labor. The fact is that I'd be greatly accelerating that maintenance item, but it'd reset the clock on my clutch plus any work by Mini was covered by a 2 year/unlimited mileage warranty. So I poured about $700+ into that - which was just the cost of the new clutch. A month later, it all ended up in a salvage yard. But that gave me a taste of the expense of owning European vs Japanese/Korean. If I were to view this through a karmic lens, there was a reason I had that maintenance scare. No matter how meticulous I could be with taking care of the car, those unexpected repairs could set me back 10-20% of it's value just to keep it on the road. No thanks. With all of my civics, I never had to face that.
