What's with all these Honda Civics???
 

All of a sudden, from out of nowhere, I find myself surrounded by teenage boys driving Honda Civics. They get these cars and tint the windows, put on gold hubcaps, all this neon crap, sound systems that HAD to have cost as much as the car did, tires that are way too big for it, etc...

When I was that age the Honda Civic was a modest li'l car your parents bought so there was a cheap third car around the car for the kids to putter around in.

Has the Honda Civic become some kind of status symbol? And if that is so, WHY???

I asked a guy friend that same question. He said there are more after market parts available for Honda's, Civics especially, than for any other car. Therefore, they are the easiest to mack out. It's quite epidemic in the little northern suburb I'm living in right now... Lots of very bored teenagers.

My sister bought a Honda Civic a few months ago, and I noticed that everyone seems to have one in her color, Silver. Her car doesn't have gold hubcaps, tinted windows, etc. It is a nice car. :) Not as expensive as some, but not as cheap as others.

ha ha I drive a VW Jetta and I feel that way about Jettas. Jetta here, Jetta there, everywhere I turn I see a Jetta. Fortunately not macked out ones, that would drive my VW Purist self nuts! ha ha

I have a honda civic and love it. Its not looking like you described but I am not a teenager.:cool:

They're cheap and there's a movie that uses them... The Fast & the Furious. Teenagers like to emulate what they see in the media.

Strangely due to the spike in sales of Civics, the Acura Integra is three times more likely to be stolen than any other car in the top 10... Why? The engine bolts easily into a Civic without much modification having to be done.

LOL! There are quite a few alleged gangbangers in one of the suburbs of Chicago who steal, chop and mack out their Civics. They even race them. I had a good time reading a police report when one of my clients was accused (wrongfully, of course :D) of participating in a Civic chop shop and racing operation. He and the other guys involved were all of Asian decent, although I don't know if that's really relevant -- it was just something I noticed.

PEOPLE RACE THEM???? When I ran track, I could have probably outrun one!!!

http://www.riceboypage.com/

This site, albeit old, has lots of stuff on the modded Civics.

Apparently, its all about the Fast & Furious. I think it glorified all that stuff withthe little "battery operated" cars. I dunno, I see one and wanna put a big penny in the back of it, ala penny racer style. lol

People street race Civics for 2 reasons:

1) Theyre inexpensive ans easily modified

2) Theyre the most customizable car on the road

I, too, am shocked to hear that people race them. They don't even have that much horsepower! :rolleyes: The Accord would probably be more understandable...

there are a handful of imports that are decent for racing, and the civic isnt one of them. I cant stand when people do stuff to civics or any import. they sound bad, more often than not they look bad, and overall it just seems dumb to me to race a civic. ill stick with mustangs, firebirds and the rest of the good stuff from detroit :)

Because I love Civics so much...
 

I'm guessing that speed doesn't really matter when you're racing like this. Let me explain what I mean (because duh, I do realize that speed matters) -- if you're racing Civics against Civics, well, they go fast enough. Like racing turtles -- as long as the opponents are relatively equal, you can have an interesting race.

Of course, I do think racing is goofy. But I love Civics. ;)

One of the RAs in my building this past year did a continuing story on the whiteboard about trolls and unicorns and leprechauns who raced around town in low-rider Honda Civics.

Modified cars are rampant in my home town of San Diego. My cousin and a bunch of his HS friends are in a streetracing team and mod out their cars. Civics are the most modified and easiest to change around. I really hate how Fast and Furious made it into a trendy thing now. Now every cocky teen wants to mod their car.

I think it's mostly a west coast thing. I went on vacation to the east coast and I only saw one modded car and incidentally it was a Civic.

Personally if I were to get a car for streetracing I'd get a Subaru Impreza WRX. Then I'd add a cold air intake, full cat-back exhaust, change the headers, drop the suspension, upgrade the turbo and chip it to take out the factory speed limit.

But my nights of streetracing are over cuz the cops are more vigilant plus I hate driving around stupid poser punks.

Definitely not just a west coast thing! This is VERY popular here in the Oklahoma City area. There's a shop not far from where I work (stupid kids go way too fast through parking lot).. I know of several other shops here in Edmond.

It's a fad and it'll hopefully soon go the way of the pogo ball.

Well coming from the home of the import show (Carlisle, PA), I can definetely tell you that it is not just west coast. Its bad enough that the kids that are from Carlisle drive around in Civics and other ricer cars with loud exhausts and stupid looking stickers racing each other, but then we have to deal with a whole weekend of nothing but pimped out cars, which most turn out to be extremely ugly anyway, from people all over the US. They cause so many traffic problems, they tend to be nuisences (sp?) and they are just plain annoying. And the quality of people that come arent the best either. My ex went to the import show this past May, i think it was, and during the burn out competition apparently some girls thought it would be cute to flash the guys, make out with each other and do things to themselves that should not be seen in public. Suffice to say, im not a fan:mad:

I am also a San Diegan and I can tell you that a streetracing kid nearly crashed into my mother's house a few months ago. Punk.

It's been a running joke with my friends about guys who drive "pimped out hatch back Honda Civics." I think they're replacing old trans ams and cameros.

By the way, Honda doesn't make hatch back Civics anymore.

Jen

They brought back the hatchback this year with the Civic Si.

and the hatchback si is ugly. give me a trans am or a mustang, 10 grand to mod it vs a kid with an civic si and 10 grand to mod his civic, and ill beat the hell out of him....

gimme 10k and a 1999 mitsu 3000GT VR-4......

A Trans-Am or a Mustang? Even a 3000 GT... at the risk of sounding like a sorority girl, puh-lease!! Give me a Jaguar or a Mercedes!

In the movie Fast and the Furious, Paul Walker wrecked his car and his boss said the car cost something like 70 or 80 K. Does anyone know in round numbers how much it costs to modify a car?

Depends what you want and how far you want to go. Mods can be as simple as adding a universal exhaust to as complex as changing EVERY aspect of the car.....literally.

Oh yeah Fast and Furious is crap.

"I DIDN'T NARC ON NOBODY!!!" haha

I have to show my sister this thread. She bought her Honda Civic because it cost less than the Acura. I think that she should should turn her Civic into a "pimped out" car. :p

That supra isn't....

the price can very with the quality and brand of the parts. for instance, you can get an exhaust pretty cheap, but if you had a civic and wanted mugen exhaust, then youre going to pay an arm and a leg. also, different body kits are different prices, such as veilside, their kits are really expensive.

Where I come from, people pimp out Civics that you know that they spend more on the system alone than on the car. There are a million car clubs around here and they even let one club be in the high school homecoming parade... It's sad, people race their cars on "the avenue" and it's so bad that there is "unessacary repetative driving prohibited" signs all over, so the cops can ticket you if you drive the same stretch twice in one hour. This has been going on LONG before Fast and the Furious came out, but it has made some think that they are cool by slapping a Nox sticker, VTEC emblems, Asian script, tinting, and tail-pipe covers on everything from Honda CRX's, old Civic hatchbacks, and god-forbid, Ford Taurus'. The cars don't even go that fast, they just want them to "look" fast. It's an epidemic...

Okay. So my recently stolen/recovered/ruined car WAS a Civic. My sister has one and my brother has one too. We all three got them within several months thanks to dear old dad (um...they were "later model" used, so don't even get excited that my dad is rich or something to buy 3 brand new cars...yeah right!). Anyway, I love Hondas in general because they rarely have problems.

But I digress...my point is: My brother's car is totally "riced out." That is what people call a civic that is full of all the after-market add-ons and extras. However, it is a derogatory term (pertaining to the asian aspect), meaning that the car is not necessarily race-worthy, rather, it just LOOKS like it is and SOUNDS like it is (fat exhaust pipe thingy, different wheels and wheel covers, LOUD sound system, etc.). He watches people race, but his car is not fast enough to actually race with. People do race those things. It's sick. That's probably why my car was stolen...to sell parts to idiots who mess with their cars.