c i v i c

i used to have this thing for a civic. back in the mid nineties i've always thought of civics as being one of the coolest cars around. even farther back in the early nineties, my father had an 83 hedgeback civic, and i thought that car was cool. then here in the states, people modify their civics and use them for street racing. that just adds up to the coolness level of the civic.

until my mother got herself a 2003 civic last year.

having been driving a 98 corolla for a year, that time, i was excited to try the new civic, and i was disappointed. the seats were uncomfortable, the car was too high, the abs kicked in early in the braking process and pulled the car backward, it was a chaos; my 98 corolla was much easier to handle than the civic. so that one civic made me loathe other civics as well, and myself started a stereotyping new cars as being bad cars.

i'm a low rider. i don't know if that's the right term for it, but i love driving low cars. low to the ground. my corolla is pretty low, and aimee's accord was low all the way to the ground, it was great. but this 03 civic is just too high. it feels like an SUV in a sedan body, which is not cool. so that time, one year ago, i made a vow never to drive the civic unless i have to.

well, i've never had to drive the civic since then because i live in sandiego during school year, but today we had to take the civic to the dealer for yearly maintenance. two cars were needed because the plan was just to drop off the civic, but my dad won't let me touch his taurus because he said i'm too reckless for a gentle car like the taurus. i think it's more because i'm a high-rpm driver and my dad won't let his taurus to go over 2000rpm. so i had to take the civic. it's been a year since i last sat in that piece of shafooboomafoo, and the feeling has not changed. the seats are still uncomfortable, the abs is still kicking in too early and much too powerful, and the car is still too high for me.

so i said to myself. okay civic, i hate you, you hate me. now let's see how much you can handle my driving.

it's an automatic car, but i shifted down to low gear when the freeway meter stopped me. once it turned green, i floored the gas pedal and i noticed something interesting: the acceleration at low gear (2) was slow; the rumors were right. it took forever to get from 0 to 40 and the rpm was at 5500 once i reached 40. so i shifted up to middle gear (D3) and the rpm drops to 3000, gas pedal still floored. apparently at middle gear the acceleration was much faster. it did not take long to reach 60, where i shifted back to drive and was forced to hit the brake pedal because a huge truck in front of me was slowing down. the civic definitely has more power than my corolla, but at low gear, my corolla can definitely outrun the civic. too bad the corolla doesn't have a tachometer.

what impressed me though, was that the handling of the civic was much better than my corolla. i managed to skid a little going out of a clover-leaf freeway ramp at 40 mph, and the pseudoforce i encountered was not as much as when i did it with the corolla. i was still curious, so i floored the gas pedal again after i got into my neighborhood and made a sharp left at 35mph. again i managed to skid the car and i was right, the pseudoforce did not push me out as much.

so i guess i'll take the civic whenever i feel like going for a drift. ^^"

and you ask me, where my dad was when i did all this reckless driving. i let him go first, and i took a longer way around to get into the freeway. so he was ahead of me on the freeway, and he obviously got home before i did. i have my way around the system. ;)