Payne: Honda Civic Si is a manual-shift value meal

Posted by Talbot Payne on December 2, 2021

Simi Valley, California — Some performance cars fit like a glove. The Ford Mustang HiPo, Porsche Cayman, Volkswagen Golf GTI. They are intuitive to drive. Instantly familiar. Balanced.

Put the 2022 Honda Civic Si on the list.

With crisp handling, 200 horses, and precise, 6-speed manual shifter, the 2022 Honda Civic Si begs to be driven hard.

This is Honda’s driver’s car. Manual gearbox only. Rev-matching downshifts. Limited slip differential. Charging though the twisted canyons of Simi Valley north of Los Angeles, the Civic Si never put a foot wrong. The sedan rotated effortlessly for a front-wheel-drive car, summer tires sticking like flypaper. Rowing the box, I stomped the throttle and turns flew by.

Call it Si-mi Valley. This is where Angelenos come to escape suffocating traffic, cramped apartments, insufferable celebrities. It’s the playground of sports cars, hot hatches, sport bikes. The Civic Si is proof you can have it all in one car.

Honda took the compact class by storm in 2015, unveiling an ambitious 10th-generation Civic baselined to an Audi A4 and fine-tuned at the famed race track in Nurburgring, Germany, for goodness sake. The Civic boasted best-in-class fuel economy, rear leg room, smartphone connectivity. I dubbed it King Civic, the compact by which all others must be judged. Si and Type R performance models followed, each better than the last.

For its encore, Civic hasn’t rested on its laurels. The standard Civic introduced earlier this year won rave media and reviews with generous features, affordable sticker and sleek fastback variant.

But for enthusiasts like me, a Civic lineup isn’t complete until the performance models come along. Remarkably, Si is better in nearly all respects from the last gen. Let’s go inside out.

The 2022 Honda Civic Si comes with one of the best manual boxes in the business. Short throws and notchy gates make it easy to row even under duress.

Engineers have sweated the details. The stick shift goes to the head of the class, rivaling Porsche and Mazda for short, notchy throws. In more mundane stop-and-go urban commutes, owners will appreciate the easy clutch.

Speaking of clutches, heel-and-toe downshifts are a snap (much improved over the previous gen, where even my size 15 clown feet struggled to blip the throttle on downshifts). Not that you’ll need it. Honda is also throwing Si drivers the same rev-matching convenience as the last-gen Type R track rat. Whether in the LA canyons or GingerMan Raceway in west Michigan, the digital feature makes downshifts wonderfully efficient.

Toggle the drive mode rocker to SPORT and Si tenses for action. I rode shotgun with Honda IMSA racer Ryan Eversley for a spell and he sung the praises of the heavy steering and sticky rubber. They are natural outcroppings of a Honda racing culture that spans everything from Eversley’s TCR racer to IndyCar.

All of this mechanical goodness is wrapped in Civic’s upscale interior — a major leap from last gen’s plasticky, too-busy interface. So appealing is the signature honeycomb dash that Honda’s High Performance Division kept it in the upcoming Si TCA race car — while stripping out the rest of the interior for light-weighting and rollbar.

The interior of the 2022 Honda Civic Si TCA race car strips out everything but the dash - which race designers were determined to keep for its signature value.

The production cockpit features a sunroof and all-digital instrument/console displays (standard on the base Civic), with Si bringing a 9-inch version with one of the most intuitive infotainment layouts this side of Jeep’s UConnect 5. Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity beats many luxury cars to market, and Civic — true to Honda’s obsession with detail — even makes sure directions from Google Maps translate to the instrument display so you never have to take your eyes off the road. BMW does that too — for $50,000.

Jump into Civic Si and it will recognize your phone’s Google Maps directions (look Ma, it’s wireless!) and chart your course. So much fun is Si to drive, you’ll get there early.

The 2022 Honda Civic Si comes with a sleek new interior, highlighted by a honeycomb dash.

Add in Honda’s standard Safety Sensing suite of adaptive cruise control, blind-spot assist, auto-rear braking and laser night vision (kidding about that last one), and Si stickers at $2,000 more than the outgoing car.

It’s one of the best $28,315 bargains in autodom.

I’m a Golf GTI missionary — VW’s iconic, FWD stick-shift hellion — but to get the same features on the GTI (base price $31,000) I’d have to shell out a cool $35,290. Ouch.

The 2022 Honda Civic Si sports a 200-horsepower, 1.5-liter turbo-4.

That’s a lotta coin for the V-dub’s hatchback and 272 pound feet of torque (vs. Si’s 192). The Honda knows its niche, and sets the bar for sub-$30K pocket rockets.

Golf’s advantages expose the Si’s weak spots. Since the screaming, 201-horse 2006 Si (I still own one) the car’s numbers haven’t budged, while Golf GTI has increased by 25% to 240 ponies. Sure, the torque band has fattened as Honda went turbo power, but my right foot wants more. Blame federal bluenoses — and Honda’s target of 30 mpg-plus — for holding the numbers back.

The 200-hp 2022 Honda Civic Si is the pocket rocket's 11th generation -- following the first-gen, 1986 model (right), which had 91 horsepower.

Out back, I would prefer Si with a hatchback, like that offered on Civic’s $29K Sport model. The hatch brings utility and design character — but at added engineering cost.

After the far-out design of the 10th-gen Civic (its boomerang taillights right out of a comic book), Generation 11 is mercifully more conservative, with styling that will endure for years like my similarly spare 2006 model. The ’22 Si does gain cool black 18-inch wheels, a honeycomb front grille (echoing the dash) and Blazing Orange paint to help separate it from the rest of the brood.

Honda says it’s saving the hatch for the Type R.

The 2022 Civic’s return to more austere styling comes as the Hyundai Elantra N muscles its way into the segment. The Elantra looks like it was penned by an ex-pat Lamborghini designer, with more jagged surfaces than a broken mirror. Nice to have choices.

Driver's car. The 2022 Honda Civic Si comes with black trim and wheels - Sport tires are optional if you really want to stick through the twisties.

I tested the Civic Si after the Los Angeles Auto Show and it was a breath of fresh air after the nonstop gloom-and-doom press conferences pushing morally correct electric SUVs with the sex appeal of a granola bar.

Si is what automobiles were meant to be since Henry Ford terrorized Grosse Pointe. It’s a sedan designed to seat four and fetch the groceries. But it is also built for freedom — a car that can transport you to the joys of the open road.

For lead foots who want a little more from their ride, Si’s an engaging date for an autocross or a track day at GingerMan. Just be sure and bring a spare set of tires. It’s so much fun to drive, you might wear the summers to the bone.

2022 Honda Civic Si

Vehicle type: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive, five-passenger sports sedan

Price: $28,315, including $1,015 destination fee ($28,910 with summer tires and Blazing Orange paint as tested)

Powerplant: 1.5-liter turbo-4 cylinder

Power: 200 horsepower, 192 pound-feet of torque

Transmission: 6-speed manual

Performance: 0-60 mph, 6.4 seconds (Car and Driver); top speed, 135 mph

Weight: 2,952 pounds

Fuel economy: EPA, 27 mpg city/37 highway/31 combined

Report card

Highs: A joy to drive; manual shifter from the gods

Lows: Bland face for such a fun car; no hatchback

Overall: 4 stars

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.

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