Jul 07, 2006 03:43 PM
11049 Views
hmm.........where do I start from.......maybe from the fact that I fell in love today........ No, she doesnt have 2 legs, but rather 4......and all her 4 legs have ventilated discs to stop her in her tracks to hit out any guy she doesnt like. Yeah........ she's the Civic, The babe!!!!!!......Before I start again, lemme tell u......this is one car that Honda can bet its money on.........and even me.......hell.......i'd bet every single penny I have, and even the pennies I dont have after borrowing them @ C.I.
First things first, the front of the car looks egg-jactly like an Accord, albeit a smaller one. Although, the car is larger than an Corolla, or atleast it gives the impression it does.......but compared to an Accord, its definitely smaller......The front dual headlights rest in a case of carefully moulded aluminium bodyframes which give the car a tantalizing look reminding you of.... well.....Honda, but a superbly defined one at that. The way the front of the car swoops down to meet the grille makes u wonder whether the reign of the Eagle as the most graceful swooper has been challenged..... its definitely one of the best looking cars from the front....but like men mostly are, they'll probably be interested in the rear a little more, coz thats what most of the people are going to see when 132 PS of power rushes their way.
The Rear is an immaculate combination of 'jewel' lamps which light up the the way a Nissan 350Z would if braked hard......The shut lines of the car are perfectly defined, and I seriously doubt even if Pamela Anderson could finger her long nails into any one of those lines. The rear of the car taking cue from the City ZX is not kept too high so as to maintain high visibililty while reversing the car.....and when i opened the door......i was immediately caught up in the voice of Mr. Himesh Reshammiya.....Looking around I saw that Radio Mirchi was broadcasting his song......or should I say "voice" from the standard music system available with the Civic (a 6 CD changer is nonetheless standard for Honda). I asked the guy showing me around the civic, if he could please switch of the Radio.....and he obliged as soon as the words were out of my mouth. I guess, he wasnt a big fan of Mr. Himesh either. (That reminds me of a joke I just got on Sms. "What is the cube of 13?? Guess Guess..... okay.....its "Suroor". Why....???? Because "tera tera tera Suroor") (Damn......there goes my rating)
Getting my much desired peaceful surroundings.....i proceeded to check out the interior...... I did what I usually do when I enter in a car......flick the gearbox to all its 5 gears to check out the gear ratios. The were as I expected, short, sweet and very very swift to flick into. Ofcourse....it was the Manual Civic I entered into first....... Then my eyes saw the dashboard........the Dashboard!!!! the dashboard!!!!! My God, it was the most gorgeous dashboard i'd ever seen in my life.....imeddiately I could feel my palms getting sweaty and my head feeling swoony............ If you see a normal car, take an Ikon, Accent etc.......the place where the dashboard usually is housed just above the steering wheel has ALL instrumentation, but in the civic it consisted of only a tachometer in a blue and red combination.....Wondering if they stripped the car of even the speedo and the fuel gauge, I was looking around the car.....and suddenly......on the strip just below where the windshield begins.....i saw a Digital Speedo with a fuel gauge to its right and a temperature gauge to its left........damn its sexy.......i'm uploading a pic of it too.......just feast your eyes on it
btw....remote control for music systems are passe now, the civic has a box to flip open in the middle of the backseat for changing radio channels, toggling the volume and a dozen other things.......... Next up I moved to the "automatic" civic.....and that was just coz the guy was persistently trying to get me there (bigger margins on the auto I suppose) Anyhow.......i saw, I went and came back...................Conquered!!!
The car was absolutely the same in all respects to the manual except for ofcourse the transmission......which was automatic......but what I didnt expect was a Paddle Shift....Jeezus. And I felt my palms go sweaty again and the swoony headache came back with a bang........ Paddle Shifts.....i mean....damn....is this a F360 Modena, or a F430 or what........Christ!!!! damn..........i've heard of DSG's in the Skoda at 17.5 lakh, but paddle shifts at 12 lakh in a Honda is just outrageous........"dang!!!" i said........ My best friend (the honda guy) sitting next to me said "wanna try?". I held my tongue out and could only nod a reply.............he could have told me to bark if I wanted to have a test ride, and I would have barked too.......and purchased a tail and wagged it too.....
Anyhow....i sat down.......totally in exhilaraiton but confused too........coz I had no idea how to use the paddle shifts......i mean, I could hardly paddle in a boat and this was bound to be more complex than that. Sittin down in the seat, I noticed th steering wheel for the first time.....utterly Sporty!!!!!!! Smaller, Meatier and much more responsive than a Ikon 1.6 Sxi/Zxi's wheel.... I looked up from my legs and noticed the tachometer (OnLY) staring up at me from the dashboard (telling me.....dont shift at the wrong RPM....thats why i'm the only one down here.....u better not mess it up now....u cant even get confused as to what to watch) where normally the tacho, speedo, fuel gauge, temperature gauge etc stare up at me from my Accent. A lump formed in my throat and with great difficulty I swallowed it down, no doubt to resurface again in a couple of minuites as I would start "paddling".
Car out in the open, I started it, the 1.8 litre engine of the Honda growled like an African Lion who was asked to act out the part of a cat...... That done, I put the car into drive and pressed the "+" paddle and immediately the car shifted into an upper gear.....Just to see if "-" was working, i paddled it too and immediately the Cat wanted to be its own true personality again. So I didnt hound the car anymore, lest the tachometer got angry and the sunroof opened up and the seat ejected and threw me out right onto the tracks of the Ford Endeavour behind me. Shifting the car though was a breeze.....it took probably some milliseconds and when u stomped the rudder....err accelerator again, the car began shootin off ahead of the Endeavour whose driver besides the civic trying to figure out why was there only one dial on the dashboard....hahaha. Taking the car upto 80, I could see that the engine was berating itself to convince me to go faster....i like that!!! I made a "U" turn and headed back to the Honda dealership and as I came in the Honda people moved out of the way. (No, i'm not royalty, but the Honda guys obviously dont (yet) trust the people driving the Paddle Shift Civics )
Anyhow....if I had a cheque book in my pocket I would have paid the deposit on that car......thats how head-over-heels/paddles I fell in love with the Civic. Going back to my Pulsar 180 (yeah, I got a new one.....have that and the Graptor) I said to myself..... "damn!!! thats definitely a 'not-so-civilized' lady i'm gonna marry".
