I work at a Honda dealership and a little while back Honda put on a "Ride and Drive" event where we were able to get into the 2006 Civic, Civic Hybrid, and Civic Si. I was thoroughly impressed!!! This review is solely about the SI, because nobody reviewed it yet.

The first thing you notice about this car is the very aggressive styling. It looks sporty and classy at the same time. All of the pictures you find on google are the Si -- it's a coupe, with a small rear spoiler, and BMW-esque wheels that fit perfectly in the wheel-wells. I think Honda did an outstanding job on it. They had 2 of the new colors at the event, a Fiji blue, and an orangish-red called Habanero red. I don't typically like red cars (although I do own a red del Sol) but I think it looked great on this car. It wasn't "arrest-me-red", but definitely had the same sporty appearance. The blue looked sharp as well, but too quiet for such a strong vehicle.

Now to the fun part -- they let us get inside the new Si and actually drive it as well. Honda developed a 197hp 4-cylinder engine (which runs on premium fuel only, and deserves it) that really knows how to get the job done!! There are various numbers I have heard for the 0-60 on it, anywhere from 6.7-7.1seconds, but believe me for a $22,000 sports car this thing has loads of power. Honda's high-revving styling lets you get way up in the rpm's (9000 is the redline) and feel very confident that nothing bad will happen. They build atv's and dirtbikes, and include similar technology in their car engines --- don't be scared of pushing it to the limits!!

The 6-spd (with a short-shifter from the factory) manual transmission shifted very smoothly between gears and the clutch was very tight -- perfectly matched to the vehicle. You will love it! Unfortunately for any wanna-be car nuts the car cannot have an automatic transmission. It shouldn't come with one, so I don't really think that's a bad thing at all.

The absolute best part of this car is the way it takes curves. It responded quickly and instinctively, with very little body lean. The seats really lock you into place, just like a race car. We pushed the car pretty hard and it was an awesome ride.

Honda also had a team of guys work to perfect the sound from the tailpipes. When you hit about 5000rpm's you'll hear the engine make some beautiful sounds. It sounds good, but not loud like most of the tuner's us kids are driving around nowadays. It's much more classy and refined, but still a whole lot of fun!

Honda provided us with some of the competitor's vehicles to drive and see the comparison. Included were:

the redesigned Mitsubishi Eclipse - I must admit that it looks tremendous and drove fast even in the automatic transmission, but was no comparison in terms of interior quality. I felt that the car was simply over-powered -- it wasn't as secure of a feeling as the Si offered.
the Scion TC - a very affordable and worthy competitor, with the Toyota name to back up its quality for years to come, but it doesn't look quite as sporty as the Si and definitely couldn't compete on the track in terms of speed or handling
the Mazda3 - This car felt cheap again like the Eclipse, and was up against the wrong class of cars. It was just slow!

Honda re-designed the Si and went back to the Coupe, which I think was overdue. They looked at every dimension of the vehicle and came up with an awesome result. The price will be about $19,990 for the base vehicle, add $200 for the 18" rims with summer only tires (stock is 17" all season tires, but I doubt that's much better in snow), the rare model with navigation system will be $21,740, with optional $200 summer tires again.

Honda is not making a whole lot of these cars, and they will sell very quickly. You get a whole lot of car for the money! They should arrive in dealerships in mid-December. I can't wait!! If you are at all interested, just buy it. You will not be disappointed. Keep in mind this is not a car for everyone -- it is suited for a specific niche of the market. If this is what you want, this is the car to get, hands down. Buy them fast, because the price will always be the sticker, and they will not last until the summer.

Thanks Honda!!!