With the Los Angeles Auto Show just but days away, Honda tips its hand and shows the new Civic Coupe and Civic Coupe Si early.
2014 Honda Civic Coupe
The Las Vegas SEMA show is generally not where one goes for a new vehicle unveiling. Equipment manufacturers, parts divisions, tuner cars and concept cars alike are all in steady supply but few are the unveiling. After all, the 2013 Los Angeles Auto Show is only two weeks away, so most automakers prefer to hold their babies back a few more days and let them soak in the press light on their own.
Instead, Honda chose to double dip the Coupe launch so they had something to show with their announcement of street oriented performance parts, and so the Honda Civic Coupe and Civic Si Coupe made their debut. Honda still plans drop more and spill whatever they been holding back on the Coupe at the LA show, but the cat has largely been let out of the bag now.
Thankfully, it appears any misteps from the 2012 Civic have been largely sidestepped and the '13 Coupe shares the sharper lines of the emergency refreshed 2013 Honda Civic sedan. This carries over into the more aggressive grille design which is more integrated with the headlamps, but its the hexagon shaped pods that house the fog lamps on the lower part of the fascia that make the biggest visual difference over its four door sibling. Other changes include updates to the rear tail light lenses, new side mirrors, and new wheel designs which are less flared and more straight line then the old look.
The whole look is certainly more aggressive then the old look, with a reduction in soft curves and more hard edges, and it does cover several of the warts from the old design. However more aggressive isn't always better, and some might not be as turned on to the new hard line style from the old swept look. Still, overall it is an improvement.
2014 Honda Civic Coupe Si
For the sibling Civic Coupe Si, the changes are largely the same until you get to the very noticeable rear deck spoiler. On the front there is also some additional badgeing, and a slightly modified lower front bumper which are also carried over with the Civic Si Sedan. Also the Si model rides on 18" wheels as opposed to the 17" wheels found on the standard Civic Coupe with a new wheel design that is more swept then the new bar design on the standard coupe.
On the inside, the new Civic Coupe Si gets a bump of a whole 4 horsepower thanks to a retuned exhaust system. Which while 4 horsepower it doesn't actually sound like a lot (it isn't) it's not bad for an improved exhaust. All told, it brings the performance tuned Si Coupe to 205 horsepower and 174 lb-ft of torque over the outgoing model.
More Civic information of course is promised for the re-reveal at the LA show so we'll bring you that when we travel to that show in two weeks.
