2010 Honda Civic DX-VP Sedan 5-Speed AT

2010 Honda Civic Si HFP - Click above for high-res image gallery There was a time was when any serious discussion of "hot hatches" – small, lightweight economy cars pumped full of go-fast parts and body modifications of dubious taste – always included the Honda Civic Si. Back in the day, the D16Z6-engined Si would routinely do battle against the Volkswagen GTI and Nissan Sentra SE-R for import tuner supremacy. Times, however, change. These days, the battle for hot hatch supremacy starts and essentially ends with turbocharged beasties like the Mitsubishi Evolution and Subaru WRX/STI, with a dash of MazdaSpeed3 or Mini Cooper S thrown in for flavor. The Sentra SE-R is little more than a sad shell of its former self (a fact we find odd considering just how much cache Nissan has built up for the brand with its exotic-destroying Godzilla GT-R) and the Volkswagen GTI has evolved into an entry-level Audi – lots of interior and NVH refinement, but lacking the kicked-in-the-you-know-where power necessary to keep up with the all-wheel-drive Japanese kids. But what about the Civic Si? Where does it fit into the import tuner lexicon, especially when loaded up with lots of Honda Factory Performance (HFP) parts? Make the jump as we attempt to find out. %Gallery-97033% Photos copyright ©2010 Drew Phillips / AOL The four-door Civic is more conservatively shaped than the two-door version, a double-wedge profile that we still find intriguing late into its life-cycle. The sedan, however, is sort of the BMW 3 Series of the small C-segment: Smartly shaped and aerodynamically efficient, but now getting on a bit. Honda has tried to address some of this lacklusterness by tricking out this particular Si with lots of HFP add-ons. While these supposed aero-mods might actually enhance performance, the front splitter seems only there to scrape up against gas station driveways. Meanwhile, the rear wing is a total show piece, as a factory Civic Si is hardly capable of speeds where this sort of downforce is warranted. Worst of all, fart-can exhausts should never, ever come from the factory and we think this is a particularly shameful way for Honda to make $40. It's not that we find the Si HFP ugly (we think the paint scheme is great), but it's sending out the wrong sort of message, the sort that Jesse's Jetta sent out in the original Fast and the Furious movie. Almost a desperate, "Me too, me too..." Inside is the now familiar Star Trek dashboard affair that people love or hate. We're (naturally) split. On the plus side, we really like the simplified layout where the tachometer is front and center, just like it should be in a performance-oriented car – though it does make you wonder why it occupies that place of honor in the more pedestrian Civic models that make up the overwhelming majority of sales. Still, fans of VTEC will appreciate knowing exactly when cam-phasing is set to take place.

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