#Civic

Honda is having a pretty tough year compared to its competitors, with an unsuccessful North American Civic refresh and the floods in Thailand hurting their production. Just how tough has this year been for Honda? They’re the only large automaker to post a US sales decline last month, when total sales jumped 14-percent throughout the industry.

Honda‘s airbag woes grew significantly after they recalled an almost 1 million additional vehicles.

With the 2011 SEMA Show just around the corner, we’ve been getting fed tons of teasers and sneak peeks of finished projects that will be making their way to the big aftermarket expo in Las Vegas. But forget teasers, here’s the full reveal of Fox Marketing’s 2012 Honda Civic Si, boasting a wickedly clean widebody and packing over 450-hp thanks to Full-Race’s turbo kit.

The only natural gas production car to be manufactured and sold in the United States, the all-new 2012 Honda Civic Natural Gas will be available at 200 dealers across 38 states beginning on October 18th.

Being the savvy multinational corporation Honda is, it has to take its knocks with some tact. And with its reputation marred by Consumer Reports’ dragging of the 2012 Honda Civic through the muck, it’s no surprise that Honda has issued a statement claiming that they “fundamentally disagree” with the magazine’s review.

Both Honda and Consumer Reports, of course, have valuable reputations in the minds of consumers. And so, “they are definitely finding fault with someone they have shown a lot of love in the past,” said John Mendel, executive vice president of sales for Honda North America.

Mendel picks apart the CR review and finds that “Consumer Reports’ own testing found that Civic’s smooth and efficient powertrain returned “…an impressive 30 mpg overall on regular fuel and 47 mpg on the highway. Only one other compact car the magazine tested did better.” In addition, “as noted in Consumer Reports findings, the Civic excels with a long list of important safety features that are standard on all trim levels.”

Rival publication Motor Trend, “which knows a thing or two about ride and handling,” picked Civic 2nd among eight compact cars in a recent comparison test. This, Mendel says, is proof that the Civic is still a player in the already-competitive small car market. “However, we disagree with Motor Trend as well—we think there is no better compact car than Civic.” Hey now, don’t get greedy!

Lastly, Mendel notes that CR only reviewed one model of the Civic, the LX sedan, while there are six different models across three trim levels. While this could be construed as a fair point, we doubt that some of the Civic’s greater shortcomings could be drastically improved with the ticking of an options box.

Click here to read AutoGuide’s 2012 Honda Civic review or hit the jump to watch the video:

American consumers are buying more four-cylinder vehicles than ever before. According to research by IHS Automotive, 43 percent of all new cars delivered in the U.S in the first half of 2011, were powered by four-cylinders. In 2005, 43 percent of all new cars in the U.S were powered by sixes. The remaining 57 percent of cars sold in the US  this year were six, eight and twelve cylinder engines.

Honda, which is currently the only manufacturer in the United States selling a dedicated compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicle, might see a significant spike in demand for the Civic GX model. The reason? Honda has announced that the Civic Natural Gas will qualify for the White Clean Air Vehicle decals in California, which will allow access to the HOV lane through January 2015. Those who had Yellow Clean Air Vehicle decals (including the ever-popular Prius) had them expire earlier this month on July 1st, 2011.

The all-new Hyundai Elantra Coupe will debut this fall at the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show, with Hyundai is hoping this new coupe will eat into  Honda Civic Coupe sales.

North American Honda production will return to normal in August, earlier than expected, the company announced in a statement today.

Celebrating the 10th year anniversary of its Honda Civic Tour, Honda has announced that this year’s event will be headlined by blink-182 and My Chemical Romance. For those that have been following the Honda Civic Tour throughout its years will know that blink-182 was also the headline band for the first ever Honda Civic Tour in 2001. This year they’ll be joined by My Chemical Romance as they trek through 40-plus stops starting on August 5th, 2011.

Every time a new version of a car is introduced sales are expected to spike. That, however, is not the case with the all-new 2012 Honda Civic with American Honda Motor Co. sales boss John Mendel warning dealers in a memo that supply will be “severely restricted, with limited availability of certain models.”

With the new 2012 Honda Civic lineup having just been announced at the New York Auto Show, it’s natural for Honda lovers to scratch their heads and wonder where the hatchback variant is. Or better yet, where the Si hatchback version is.

Some people just have all the luck. Jim Morgan from Manchester, England is the lucky winner of Honda‘s Mugen Civic Type-R Concept giveaway. This is the concept that got the limited edition Type R Mugen production car underway – of which just 20 were made for a retail price of around $100,000.

If you’ve ever performed an engine swap you probably have your fair share of funny or scary stories to share. Recently we ran across this video, and despite it probably being staged, it’s still funny mostly because we can relate. Anyone that has ever taken apart a car always anticipates the worst and well, this video is probably the worst.

It looks like these guys were swapping in a new motor in a Honda Civic, which these days has become pretty easy and straightforward. But as the guy unbolts the last engine mount bolts, the motor drops and along with it goes the front bumper, headlights and everything else imaginable in that vicinity. It’s clearly staged since no one would be unbolting headlights or even a front bumper for an engine swap, but we gotta love the end tag line stating that cherry pickers are for wimps anyway.

Video after the break.

[Source: FailBlog]

It has been over a decade since North America was introduced to Honda’s infamous Integra Type-R. At the 2010 Tokyo Auto Salon, Honda is showing off two versions of its tuned Civic Type-R; one in hatchback form and another in sedan form. The white paint scheme with red badging that has become synonymous with the Type-R was prevalent in addition to Sports Modulo products on the sedan. For those that have been kept in the dark, Modulo is the new custom brand name of Honda Access Corporation, manufacturer of Honda aftermarket products.