Honda CRX Si vs Civic Si: absolutely buzzing

By Charlie Calderwood

| 11 Dec 2024

Classic & Sports Car – Honda CRX Si vs Civic Si: absolutely buzzing

When the CRX Si was introduced in 1984, it was Honda’s cake-and-eat-it moment.

Weighing less than anything else in its class and boasting a fizzing 12-valve, fuel-injected engine, the Civic CRX Si not only showed that a front-driver could be a proper sports car without any excuses, but also that you could have all of that plus 40mpg for the equivalent of £21,000 in today’s money.

It was such a good idea that Honda put the same engine in its regular hatchback a year later, creating the brilliant proto-hot-hatch Civic Si.

The Honda CRX Si (left) is 46mm lower than its breadvan-style sibling

The two cars here are from the American Honda Motor Company’s own Collection Hall in California, and that’s fitting because the ‘Si’ moniker that began with the CRX (and simultaneously the Prelude) in 1984 has had a longer career in the United States than anywhere else.

You can still buy a Civic Si Stateside, where it’s one of the very few new cars offered with a manual transmission.

Four decades later and a consistent subset of Americans still can’t get enough of affordable, sporty Hondas – even when the rest of the country has gone pick-up and SUV mad.

So successful had the Civic become by the early 1980s that Honda moved to a Detroit-aping four-year model lifecycle with the third-generation car.

Both Honda CRX Si (right) and Civic Si use the same 91bhp four-cylinder engine

Sharing few panels between them was a three-door hatchback, four-door saloon, five-door MPV ‘Shuttle’ and – to some surprise – a two-door fastback coupé.

Thanks to looser emissions laws, Europe and Japan got a 100bhp fuel-injected CRX straight away, while Americans made do with a pair of carburetted cars for most of 1984.

The less powerful of the two, a 60bhp 1.3-litre CRX HF, was marketed as the ultimate fuel saver of the range – the CRX being both the lightest and slipperiest of the new Civics, notching an impressive 67mpg (US; 80mpg UK) in the EPA’s highway test.

Within a year, America had received a lightly detuned CRX Si, with a 91bhp 1.5-litre ‘four’.

Fuel injection was key to the US market

‘Civic Renaissance Experimental’ is the accepted derivation of CRX, a phrase that smacks of a non-native English speaker, to put it kindly.

The initials sounded sporty and cool, and that was probably the main point.

Only Lancia’s Fulvia and Beta preceded it as mass-produced, front-wheel-drive, two-seat sports coupés, so perhaps Honda did have a point with the experimental bit, at least.

Unlike ‘our’ American-market car, European and Japanese CRXs had back seats, but it was a tiny bench that folded out of the boot floor and made a pre-war dickey seat look comfortable.

Honda’s Si models delivered low-cost thrills more than a decade before the Type R badge was applied to a hatchback

Either way, with its shortened, 2200mm (86.6in) wheelbase, the CRX reopened a segment below the Capris, Mantas and Fuegos of its day –Autocar even called it ‘a new kind of MG Midget’.

While the CRX was the least-practical Honda motor car since the S800 of the 1960s, its wedgy body still provides an impressively spacious cabin at the front and a generous load area in the back.

“Efficiency equals performance,” said Honda research and development director Nobuhiko Kawamoto to Car and Driver in 1984.

That ethos was all-pervasive, whether in the plastic front wings, front fascia and bumpers that help the CRX to an astoundingly lithe 830kg, or the space-saving front torsion bars.

The Honda CRX Si steers keenly with minimal roll

Common to all third-generation Civics, this was one of the last new-car designs to use such springs and, though short-lived (the Civic returned to coils for its fourth generation), they form part of a wonderfully agile chassis.

Honda had developed the torsion-bar set-up a bit beyond what you’d find underneath a Beetle, with longitudinal bars replacing the coil springs in an otherwise conventional MacPherson strut set-up.

The rear isn’t that sophisticated, though, using a coil-sprung beam axle located by a Panhard rod.

Even so, it isn’t difficult to make a car this light handle well, and the CRX shows more than a decent effort.

There’s an impressive amount of space beneath the Honda CRX Si’s fastback shape

Honda actually had to increase the steering rack’s ratio from the economy 1.3 model for the Si because, once fitted with an anti-roll bar and better tyres, it was considered too quick for regular use.

At exactly four turns lock-to-lock, it brings this short wheelbase, with barely any overhangs, around almost telepathically and without a hint of play.

More impressively, it doesn’t have as much of the vagueness around the centre at higher speeds common to contemporaries with similarly geared racks, such as the Peugeot 205 and Ford Fiesta.

The Honda CRX Si’s cabin (pictured) feels lower-set than the Civic’s

The CRX is an old-school hot hatch of a handler: grippy at the front, with the rear feeling as if it is being dragged along for the ride.

Well controlled, with a bias to understeer, it is neutral in all but the most aggressive of hands.

Driving the CRX around the smooth roads of Honda’s vast US headquarters in Torrance, California, doesn’t offer a proper test of the car’s ride – that unsophisticated rear will likely jump around on a mid-corner ridge – but it does have enough compliance to take a speed bump without extreme caution.

More special than any of this car’s technical talents, however, is its effervescent delivery.

The script on the Honda CRX Si’s reflector bar is very 1980s

Its brilliant steering is only matched in response by the 12-valve engine’s zingy throttle, which instantly surges this tiny fastback forward on frantic gearing.

It’s hard to believe that just 91bhp can feel so pugnacious, but with so little mass to pull, the CRX lifts its nose slightly as it races around, the single-cam engine buzzing like a wasp’s nest.

This is not a harsh unit – it enjoys revving – but the Honda doesn’t do quiet, effortless speed. It works hard.

That doesn’t make it a tiresome drive, though. Simple things such as well-sorted ergonomics, superb vision and the perfectly weighted steering accomplish a lot of that.

Prolific heater controls in the Honda CRX Si

Its basic Civic ancestry means that, when you’re not in the mood for razzing it, it’s just a practical, usable commuter car with every control in its angular interior easy and light to operate.

This well-optioned example even has air conditioning and a separate graphic equaliser for the stereo.

Honda’s experiment paid off well enough that, within a year, it saw fit to put the same 91bhp engine in the regular Civic hatch, too.

The company had produced mildly sporty versions before – the second-generation Civic S had offered a bit more power than cooking models thanks to a second carburettor – but the constant struggle against America’s harsh emissions laws meant that the third-generation Civic S was really just a trim level in the States.

The Honda CRX Si’s graphic equaliser

Fortunately, fuel injection provided the answer, creating the simple ‘Si’ moniker.

The new Si wasn’t beyond a bit of tinsel, either: ‘our’ red 1986 car looks far more exciting than your standard grocery-getter with its colour-coded airdam, boot spoiler, disc-like wheeltrims and full-width tail-light/reflector bar.

More substantially, the Si gained a rear anti-roll bar and sports seats.

Although it’s the much later sixth-generation Civic of the early 2000s that gained the nickname ‘breadvan’, this was the first one with a van-like profile, and exhibited at its most extreme.

The Honda CRX Si’s inset headlamps distinguish it from the Civic

There’s no kink in the slightly curved line that takes the hatch up from the rear bumper to the roof; if it were a few centimetres longer you’d call it a two-door estate.

It feels like a goldfish bowl inside as a result, both in the exceptional vision and the space offered from such a small footprint.

Higher in its centre of gravity and without some of the weight-saving panels of the CRX, the Civic is slightly dulled compared to its smaller stablemate, but it’s still a thrilling package.

The Honda CRX Si uses lightweight panels for a scant 830kg total

There’s nothing about this little Honda that isn’t easy to use.

Its gearshift is light, simple to navigate and short in throw, while the clutch is similarly effortless.

There’s a particular joy to throwing a car around like this when it offers such practicality and economy – though there must have been a lot of bruised fruit in the mid-’80s, with nothing in the Civic’s tall boot to stop your shopping being flung around from corner to corner.

Subtle front airdam for the sporty Honda Civic Si

Open the bonnet and it’s clear that the four-cylinder unit of the Civic isn’t just identical to the CRX, the whole engine bay is.

From the A-pillar forward they are almost exactly the same, the deleted headlight covers of the fastback doing the most to visually differentiate the two.

The 12-valve ‘four’ is lively here, too, with a sub-10 secs 0-60mph sprint still very respectable for its day, but it’s a bit quieter than its lighter sibling thanks to better sound-deadening and slightly longer gearing.

The Honda Civic Si’s plastic-heavy dashboard

You find a very different dashboard in the Civic, however.

It’s a bit less styled, not quite as angular and probably a bit cheaper to produce, with more exposed hard plastics rather than the squishy, vinyl-wrapped pieces in the CRX.

Anyone who’s spent time in an SD3-generation Rover 200 would feel familiar with much of it, from the wide, flat dashboard to the sliding heater controls.

‘Ergonomic rightness means that almost as soon as you sit in the car you feel ready to exploit every last ounce of its performance’

It’s still got all the ergonomic rightness of the CRX, however.

Almost as soon as you sit in the car, you feel ready to exploit every last ounce of its performance.

These two have just 182bhp between their twinning 1.5-litre engines, but they must be among the most entertaining cars ever driven for Classic & Sports Car.

They’re a reminder of the great virtue of lightness, so much so that the contemporary press labelled the CRX as the Lotus Elite of its day.

The Honda Civic Si’s boot spoiler, disc-like wheeltrims and full-width tail-light give it a sporty appearance

Both reap the rewards of a momentary sweet-spot in automotive history when bodies were still properly light, while fuel injection began to provide reliable, economical, smooth-running engines with high specific outputs.

It didn’t last. Cars quickly bloated and power outputs had to jump again to keep pace, creating much more serious – but often less playful – cars such as Honda’s own legendary Type Rs of the 1990s.

The Civic Si is an excellent ‘warm hatch’, easily the match of other segment leaders such as the Peugeot 205 XS, but arguably even more practical with its breadvan shape and faultless Honda build quality.

The CRX, by virtue of its lighter body and lower stance, is just that bit better in every dynamic sense and, as a result, is the truly special car of the duo.

‘Only Lancia’s Fulvia and Beta preceded the CRX Si as mass-produced, front-wheel-drive, two-seat sports coupés’

For those jaded by the weight and lack of engagement in modern motors, there are few cars that provide such a pure antidote as a Mk1 Honda CRX Si.

The kind of cheap, joyful everyday fun of this pair has rarely been captured with the same vim since.

While modern equivalents to the Si Hondas of the 1980s are undoubtedly safer, any enthusiast would jump out of these two and wonder why, with 40 years of technological progress, we can’t make cars like this any more.

It’s just a shame that they were built with such a proclivity for rust and so few of them – beyond south California – survive.

Images: Max Edleston

Factfiles

Honda CRX Si

Sold/number built 1984-’87/220,502 (all Mk1 CRXs)
Construction steel monocoque
Engine all-alloy, sohc, 12v 1488cc ‘four’, Honda PGM-FI fuel injection
Max power 91bhp @ 5500rpm
Max torque 93lb ft @ 4500rpm
Transmission five-speed manual, FWD
Suspension: front independent, by struts, torsion bars rear beam axle, trailing arms, coil springs, telescopic dampers, anti-roll bar
Steering rack and pinion
Brakes discs front, drums rear, with servo
Length 12ft 1in (3675mm)
Width 5ft 4in (1626mm)
Height 4ft 3in (1290mm)
Wheelbase 7ft 3in (2200mm)
Weight 1830lb (830kg)
Mpg 36
0-60mph 8.2 secs
Top speed 112mph
Price new £7000 (1985)
Price now £6-15,000*