2006 Honda-Acura.net Car of the Year - Honda Civic
02-09-2006, 02:38 PM
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2006 Honda-Acura.net Car of the Year - Honda Civic
We have a Car of the Year folks. As a refresher, these were the rules for vehicles to qualify for the ballot: Base price must fall under $50,000. The vehicle must be a totally new vehicle, with a few exceptions. If a car is a new trim level or body style of an existing vehicle that is significantly different from all pre-existing versions of that vehicle, it qualifies. Also if a car is built on the same basic platform as the car it replaces, but is updated enough to make it significantly different it from the outgoing model, it qualifies. And obviously, if a car is totally new for 2006 then it qualifies. The voting has finished, and if you read the thread title, well then you know what it is.
Now for the second year in a row, you the loyal readers of this particular Honda-oriented site, have chosen a Honda product as your Car of the Year (last year was the Acura RL). But yet again, while there might be some bias there, the Civic is still a pretty significant new car.
The Civic has been a perennial bestseller. The previous 7th-generation car was rather bland. Honda could have gone for yet another conservative refresh and still probably have sold bucketloads of cars. But the new Civic is pretty wild both inside and out. Styling aside, there's a lot of stuff in the Civic that regular car buying people will really go for. Standard safety features include antilock brakes with electronic brake force distribution, active head restraints, side-impact and side-curtain airbags, and "Advanced Compatibility Engineering" structure. The hood and front fenders are even pedestrian-friendly. The base engine is more powerful than the previous EX-only engine option, is now ULEV-2 emissions compliant, and still gets 30 mpg city and 40 mpg highway on the EPA scale. For the first time the coupe and sedan bodies are significantly different sizes, and the coupe gets a firmer standard suspension calibration. Honda took refinement so far, they even designed the door seals to vibrate the doors a certain way to produce a premium-sounding thunk noise.
"When this thing hits 88 miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious s--t!" Ok, the new Civic doesn't have a flux capacitor, but it wouldn't look out of place in that little movie featuring a time-traveling DeLorean. The dual-level instrument panel with digital speedometer is funky to say the least, but it's surprisingly functional as well. Keeping with the theme set by the high-tech look, premium gizmos like 1-touch windows, colored interior lighting that casts a glow over the dash at night, speed-sensing audio volume, CD Text, satellite navigation and MP3 player audio hookups are available pretty much across the board.
The top of the 2006 Civic performance heap is the Si coupe. Compared to the regular Civic coupe, the Si has a 2.0 liter 197 hp engine, 6-speed manual transmission, limited-slip differential, more aggressive suspension settings, bigger wheels, sport seats, and red interior lighting. Practically speaking, it's a n Acura RSX Type-S without the quasi-luxury pretense, the LSD added, and a couple grand chopped off the sticker price.
The other unique Civic model is the Hybrid. The 2006 Civic Hybrid gets, of course, the same improvements as the rest of the lineup, but has some hybrid-specific improvements as well. It has 80% more torque, 50% more power and 170% more regenerative braking than last year. The low-end torque of the electric motor helps the Hybrid scoot off the line and zip away from other, less eco-friendly cars. Speaking of that, mileage is rated at 47 mpg city and 48 highway by the EPA, and Honda claims that the Civic Hybrid is more likely to match its mileage numbers than a certain other space-age styled hybrid vehicle of Japanese origin.
So there you have it folks. The new Civic is bigger, more refined, more highly styled, more practical, more comfortable, more eco-friendly, more sporty, and in general offers significantly more of everything than the car it replaces. Even with all these improvements the Civic is still nice and cheap, ranging from $14,360 for a DX with manual transmission, to $23,350 for a Hybrid with navigation.
For all these reasons, and of course because this is what you voted for, the Honda Civic is the 2006 Honda-Acura.net Car of the Year.
Now for the second year in a row, you the loyal readers of this particular Honda-oriented site, have chosen a Honda product as your Car of the Year (last year was the Acura RL). But yet again, while there might be some bias there, the Civic is still a pretty significant new car.
The Civic has been a perennial bestseller. The previous 7th-generation car was rather bland. Honda could have gone for yet another conservative refresh and still probably have sold bucketloads of cars. But the new Civic is pretty wild both inside and out. Styling aside, there's a lot of stuff in the Civic that regular car buying people will really go for. Standard safety features include antilock brakes with electronic brake force distribution, active head restraints, side-impact and side-curtain airbags, and "Advanced Compatibility Engineering" structure. The hood and front fenders are even pedestrian-friendly. The base engine is more powerful than the previous EX-only engine option, is now ULEV-2 emissions compliant, and still gets 30 mpg city and 40 mpg highway on the EPA scale. For the first time the coupe and sedan bodies are significantly different sizes, and the coupe gets a firmer standard suspension calibration. Honda took refinement so far, they even designed the door seals to vibrate the doors a certain way to produce a premium-sounding thunk noise.
"When this thing hits 88 miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious s--t!" Ok, the new Civic doesn't have a flux capacitor, but it wouldn't look out of place in that little movie featuring a time-traveling DeLorean. The dual-level instrument panel with digital speedometer is funky to say the least, but it's surprisingly functional as well. Keeping with the theme set by the high-tech look, premium gizmos like 1-touch windows, colored interior lighting that casts a glow over the dash at night, speed-sensing audio volume, CD Text, satellite navigation and MP3 player audio hookups are available pretty much across the board.
The top of the 2006 Civic performance heap is the Si coupe. Compared to the regular Civic coupe, the Si has a 2.0 liter 197 hp engine, 6-speed manual transmission, limited-slip differential, more aggressive suspension settings, bigger wheels, sport seats, and red interior lighting. Practically speaking, it's a n Acura RSX Type-S without the quasi-luxury pretense, the LSD added, and a couple grand chopped off the sticker price.
The other unique Civic model is the Hybrid. The 2006 Civic Hybrid gets, of course, the same improvements as the rest of the lineup, but has some hybrid-specific improvements as well. It has 80% more torque, 50% more power and 170% more regenerative braking than last year. The low-end torque of the electric motor helps the Hybrid scoot off the line and zip away from other, less eco-friendly cars. Speaking of that, mileage is rated at 47 mpg city and 48 highway by the EPA, and Honda claims that the Civic Hybrid is more likely to match its mileage numbers than a certain other space-age styled hybrid vehicle of Japanese origin.
So there you have it folks. The new Civic is bigger, more refined, more highly styled, more practical, more comfortable, more eco-friendly, more sporty, and in general offers significantly more of everything than the car it replaces. Even with all these improvements the Civic is still nice and cheap, ranging from $14,360 for a DX with manual transmission, to $23,350 for a Hybrid with navigation.
For all these reasons, and of course because this is what you voted for, the Honda Civic is the 2006 Honda-Acura.net Car of the Year.
