Facelift

MANILA, Philippines - Considering how popular cosmetic surgeons have become recently, I guess it was only a matter of time before the eighth generation Honda Civic underwent its own nip and tuck. After all, if it’s not broken, just facelift it, right? Let’s just hope the videos don’t surface.

The biggest upgrade, aside from the mildly tweaked, chrome smoked headlamps on the 2.0-liter, plus the new USB audio feature and the octagon LED taillights, is the addition of those sporty little paddle shifters for the 1.8-liter S model.

The feature, which debuted in 2006 on the top of the line 2.0-liter models only, gives the driver more involvement during those spirited drives and strikes an even better compromise between manual and automatic transmissions.

Problem was, you needed to slide the lever down into “S” mode first before you could activate the paddles. This may sound a little spoilt, considering that it wasn’t long ago where we needed to kick a clutch and row through every gear, but it was just a hairlength away from being perfect – much like having a tiny pebble in your running shoe.

Now Honda takes it one step further by programming the paddle shifters to be activated even in “D” mode. This means you can instantly shift into manual mode when you stumble across a challenging set of curves, or when you need to pass that smoky old bus up ahead without having to commit to a full “race” mode. Best part is, once the fun is over, the transmission will revert back into auto mode if it senses no more inputs from the driver.

For those power hungry folks, however, there still is the “S” mode that will hold the gear all the way to the rev limiter and give you a more aggressive shifting pattern.

To illustrate the point, Honda cars Philippines brought the usual suspects over to the Subic International Raceway for some “friendly” competition. Yeah right. Perhaps if they keep telling themselves that, it might become true; I have yet to see anything friendly in any competition. Especially on a racetrack.

You could almost see people’s eyes glaze over. It was as if the word itself had released the body snatchers and replaced these familiar looking colleagues of mine with ruthless savages behind the wheel. All of a sudden, every single rule was questioned, every detail clarified, every perceived advantage neutralized.

Ten-time national rally champion, Vip Isada, was on hand to reduce the carnage. Being a veteran of the Honda Media Challenge, Vip knows us all too well but still had his hands full making sure he kept all the cars facing shiny side up and oily parts down. He patiently explained the advantages of this technology once you get used to it, such as never accidentally putting it in to the wrong gear, and balancing the car before you make the turn.

At first I thought it would be just the garden-variety, 10-second patronizing slalom that we are usually tortured with in many car launches. But anyone who has spent anytime with Honda Philippines knows, that’s just not how they roll. Instead, we were given the short track, which included the treacherous, off-camber turn one that you approach at 140 km/h before diving into second gear and exit just inches from the unforgiving concrete barriers.

After being divided into three teams of eight, we were basically asked to find the fastest way around the track. That’s it. No “Amazing Race” types of challenges, no unrelated games to play, just go for gold; last team to the checkered flag are a bunch of vegetarians.

First up was a time trial relay, while the afternoon session was a very brave 30-minute endurance race. Now I’ll admit that I was one of the few that had felt that the Civic had kind of gone a little soft in its old age, especially after the almighty SIR, but after 30 minutes of “on-the-limit” driving on stock brake pads and OEM tires I almost expected to see a patch of hair sprout out on the hood.

The Electronic Power Steering (EPS) system never faded, which is usually common once all the fluids start to boil up with aggressive use, and while the brakes did start heating up during the end of my seventh lap, they stabilized towards the end and started giving consistent times to our last few drivers.

Each member of the team had to complete just one lap, while the quicker drivers were tasked to make up the difference. Everything was going oh so well until…

Now, it’s painful enough to miscalculate the laps and leave one driver out. But when that driver happens to be the president of Honda Cars Philippines…

I did quietly ask him to pull rank and either extend the race or grant our team a presidential pardon, but once again, that’s just not how they roll. As forgiving as he was, it may be a while before I am able to get the image of Shimizu-san standing in the driver’s box with his helmet on and adrenaline pumping waiting for his turn, only to be told we had run out of time. This is what many people refer to as Deakinitis!

Needless to say, our extremely graceful host took it all in stride and just seemed genuinely happy that we were all able to experience the benefits of the paddle shifters that never missed a beat and took all the guess work out of down shifts. Add to that the newly designed alloy wheels and a newly designed bumper with a sporty mesh-type grille, and Honda may just have a car that is almost as popular as cosmetic surgeons. But in a good way.