The Torqueless WonderThis thing is loud, it's obnoxious, and it's perfect for me. I jest, I jest.
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| Plenty of commotion, but Civic's iVTEC engine is short on twist. (Photo: Justin Couture, Canadian Auto Press) |
It's not exactly perfect for me, but it's so much like me that I had to get that off my hairy chest right away. Those were my primary first impressions, which remain relatively unchanged at the end of a week-long stint, but I learned how to extract almost every ounce of go-juice from this torqueless wonder. Yeah, 197 horsepower is all well and good, but 139 lb-ft of torque? I think I used to drive a riding mower that had more low-end grunt. Okay, I exaggerate, but the inflated horsepower, low torque and boy-racer muffler means you're in for a lot of loud, heavy-footed clutch drops and a lick of spinning rubber before the limited slip differential kicks in and launches you away from traffic.
Nonetheless,
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| Si: two letters that strike fear into the eyes of cane-wielding elderly folk. (Photo: Justin Couture, Canadian Auto Press) |
despite all the acrid smoke and screaming revs, traffic was securely on my bumper, something I got used to losing in the WRX I'd recently driven; but that was clearly an unfair advantage with all-wheel drive putting 235 lb-ft of torque down to all four Bridgestone Blizzak winter boots, in the slush and snow no less. Sadly, even the base Impreza puts out 166 lb-ft, never mind the Si's true competition, like the VW GTI and its 207 lb-ft or the equally torquey Chevrolet Cobalt SS Supercharged. Still, the Si fits the sporty bill, but nowhere will you see me attach powerful as a descriptive of its performance, as its power is all smoke and noise. Once you get around its hobbled jump off the line, the Si rounds into form (or, more appropriately, rounds the corner in fine form, meaning exceptionally flat through the apex) with many nice touches to help you forget any inadequacies you may experience from stoplights, because while industry standard rates everything by 0 to 100 km/h, fun in the city is all about 0-40 km/h and 0-60 times km/h, or just plain being awake enough to surprise the old lady with the big hair in her Mercedes AMG.
While I imagine many will use the phrase "it begs to be driven hard"
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| i-VTEC badges scattered about tell you that something special is going on under the hood. (Photo: Justin Couture, Canadian Auto Press) |
to describe the Si, I would say it absolutely demands it, since you get absolutely nothing from it unless it is driven hard. Nothing. Okay, I'm exaggerating again, but I got thoroughly frustrated with the way it limped around town like a regular old Civic sedan or four-door Corolla if you stuck with moderate, sub-4K rpms all the way from home to Costco, to the movies and back home again. The Si should make you forget that it's a Civic (and by Civic I mean generic compact car), and in city traffic while observing the limits of driver etiquette, it doesn't come close, except in the noise department. Maybe if I lived with a racetrack between my home and work, I would enjoy the monstrous exhaust note (it's great, but it can be a little much before coffee in the morning), wicked steering and limited slip differential that keeps the tires from running away from each other around irresponsible turns and onramps.
Since
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| Tiny shifter knob is the gateway to a great six-speed manual. (Photo: Justin Couture, Canadian Auto Press) |
my time behind the wheel, I've been reading review after review comparing the Si to the GTI and the Si always comes out on top in the slalom and only a whisker behind in straight-line acceleration, but all the comments point to the GTI being the car that you can actually live with. I guess as I approach 30, I realize that I really don't want to drive at 10/10ths all the time. Wait a minute, yes I do, I love driving like that, but the Hell that is sunny Saturday afternoon traffic won't let me, and so I curse the deafening industrial-meat-grinder exhaust note (which, according to one comparison test, is not as loud as the GTI's cabin noise--coulda' fooled me--by about 5 or 6 decibels).
