What It's Like to Live with a 1999 Honda Civic Si (POV)

Hey crew, I've got the key to this 1999 Honda Civic Si and this particular gen6 Civic is immaculate because it comes from the Honda Museum and today I'm going to see what it's like to live with. Starting with the spacing in my driveway which is 16 feet wide by 19 and a half feet long. Got that Civic parked at a slight angle there with about eight inches of room from the front tire to sitting next to a giant three-row modern SUV. This is a new Toyota Sequoia that my wife is reviewing. If you want to check out her content it's at mobilemama on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube and that one is lined up just about perfectly with the edge of the driveway and the Civic looks tiny by comparison to the Sequoia and so with that parking job there's plenty of room to walk between the vehicles and wheel a double stroller through for my family. The nose of the Civic is parked right at the front of the driveway before the gutter and at the back there is tons of space so much room that I can easily walk in front of the hedge to my front door. Man and how pretty is this electron blue pearl paint job bluish purple with that metallic flake. I would love looking at this every day. Now hopping inside the Civic Si for the first time with the key fob in my pocket I can put my hand on the handle and you think they'd smart keyless entry in 99? No, I'm shocked they even had keyless entry so I can hit the key fob unlock button and that will unlock the doors and pulling on that handle and these doors are so light by comparison to modern doors that's one defined door notch there and I can actually just swing it all the way out and it still won't touch the Sequoia. That's my access point to this cabin and nestling on down closing up that door. Hello cabin crew thanks for joining for this day in the life in a 99 Honda Civic. Now in this video I want to see if a 25 year old performance car can handle modern life and so the very first thing I need to do is turn it on with a key going in the ignition. Oh it's been ages since I did that. Now let's hear the idle from outside the car. The little four cylinder is so quiet. This is a true cold start it's been at least 24 hours since I drove this car and this is how loud the SI is. Wild. And as I lasso on my safety belt and let go the mechanical handbrake I'll move into first gear here and slowly letting out that clutch. I do have the curb ramps there to help with the clearance of the gutter in front of my driveway but I think the SI would be fine anyway. And away we go. But I'm not going to go too far before I need to turn on the air conditioning. So there are three dials here this one for the temperature this one for the direction of the air and the bottom one for the fan speed. It's that simple and you know what it's more effective than most modern cars AC systems. And that air is blowing nice and cold. Part of the reason is because this thing is effectively brand new even though it's 25 years old it has 2,600 miles on it. I said this was pristine and it really is. There you go Mazda Miata that's about the size of this Civic SI and I mean that in the most positive way possible. It's so easy to place this car feels like I could swim across both lane markings and still be well within them. And driving this five speed manual couldn't be simpler. The clutch engagement point is very clear. In fact I'd say it's even easier to drive than a modern Civic SI because the new Civic SI the clutch release is very late and it's not that forgiving. This is so gracious to you. Just row those gears and the are long from this very tall gear shaft but they do have a defined notch into place. One issue with this SI does immediately come to mind for me. I'm six feet tall and because of this seating position which cannot be lowered any more than it is right now my head is sitting basically touching the roof. I don't know if people were made smaller 25 years ago or what but yeah I would really prefer to be sitting lower more in the driving experience not on top of it but at least these fabric coated seats are very comfortable. There's so much nice cushy padding here and with the ride quality being as supple as it is for a performance car again reminding you of that it's amazing. It's just so pleasant to drive and with these giant pieces of glass around me the windshield being so tall and wide and the glass and the sides being tall the pillars being narrow I can see just about everything even out that rear view mirror. Yeah sure modern cars have safety features like blind spot monitoring or rear cross traffic alerts but they need them because your naked eye visibility is so restricted in new vehicles but in something like this that's effectively a rolling greenhouse you just turn your head and imagine that you can see. Of course the only problem with that being that it does heat up very quickly in this vehicle so I'm really using that AC system to its maximum potential and I have arrived at the Lost Bean and here's a chance to park this Civic Si amidst bigger more modern vehicles. I'm gonna swing it next to this Nissan Frontier and go figure that's about as easy as it is to drive it down the road. Well I actually ended up moving to a shadier spot because the whole greenhouse issue makes it very warm inside the cabin but counteracting that is the fact that with the fabric seats you're not going to burn your skin from the hot leather. Now I want to show you where you can store a whole lot of things inside this cabin as I now place my coffee in one of the two cup holders. So I just pulled out my GoPro accessories those were going there before I put the coffee inside they could go back on the side of them or now I do have a choice here it is going to be an either or I can take my large water bottle and that is going to fit right inside the other cup holder. They were thinking so far ahead to when the trend of mega aluminum bottles was in full swing in the modern age that's just wild. So the GoPro accessories now we're probably just going to go in the passenger footwell. Inside this console you just have to lift gently I do have my race box it's nice and deep in there along with another GoPro and a granola bar. Then looking over at the door pocket there's enough room for my wallet and sunglasses no protection for the lenses unfortunately that's just plastic lined I'm going to hope for the best and then my smartphone can go underneath the single DIN radio. It fits perfectly in that slot the interior storage of the Civic Si is just tremendous it's honestly as usable as modern SUVs much bigger vehicles because those vehicles have all that crash safety protection and this is just well it's much thinner it's just like hollowed out now backing out of a parking space I am just so trained to look right here on the console for a backup camera but of course that was not a thing in 99 so I am going to turn my neck here and look over my shoulder and with those big windows see that no one is coming and I feel just as safe as with the backup camera. Ah you know what I need to go in the other direction this is going to give me a chance to do a turning radius test I'm lined up straight now I'm going to crank the wheel oh boy and it's actually a really wide turning circle now I know this vehicle is front drive and that is typically wider than a rear drive vehicle as an example but man for a small wheel base like this not a great turning radius now out of my driveway I didn't have any issues with clearance with the help of the curb ramps but out here in the real world no curb ramps so this one is pretty steep and I'm hopefully going to avoid yes any scraping thanks to these short overhangs that really does help and on the subject of daily driving concerns what does the turn signal sound like pleasant nostalgia whether out of panic or just frustration if you do need to use the horn in the Civic Si well for one just hitting the center of the wheel won't do anything that's just the airbag cover you'll have to use the buttons on the side and and the noise is probably going to have the opposite effect it's not going to make someone question their decision it's just going to make them happier but at least it'll make you happy too and speaking of things that make me happy I'm joined by mobile mama hello hi this feels right at home for me does it because I had a 98 Honda Civic this is a 99 99 it feels very similar this was just me post well three years post-college just cruising around Santa Barbara in this vehicle and you were cruising around slowly because you had a non-si civic oh you didn't have a sunroof but I didn't have a sunroof no I didn't whoa I like that but it was in really good condition did you have a manual or automatic it was automatic automatic but I overheated uphills because I cranked the ac I said I turned on the ac it just happened to still be cool outside I had to actually hit the ac but wow yeah that was my mistake okay because I was like wait a minute my car still stayed pretty cool why are you so sweaty but I mean the fan's just fine like it's got enough power yeah but this is fun this is like honestly this I had a lot of good times in that little 98 Honda Civic doesn't all like the glass make you happy because it's all airy and bright yeah I guess I didn't think about that yeah like I just feel happier driving this car it's also just minimal it's like there's not a ton going on no distractions it's just you get from point a to point b yeah well I mean the si you tried to do it a little bit quicker yeah that's different but yes you're right for daily driving it's an a to b car and it's comfortable and it's easy to drive you're not flipping through the infotainment like it's a phone and finding everything your car play you have car play no car play no infotainment I also played cds yeah it does have a cd player lots of cds that my friend would make for me they burned you cds yes she did you're comfortable am I right yeah I am I have plenty of legroom seats have no support side to side no but they are very pleasantly padded but honestly I feel like these this would be like a modern chair in a house these days oh you mean oh the throwback 90s like fabric pattern look how thin this steering wheel it's a very thin rim yeah if it's a big rim but it feels so nice in the hands so delicate but the question I'm kind of posing this video is whether something this old could like hack it with modern living requirements it forces you to pay attention a bit more like yes you could get distracted on your phone yeah but there are a lot but not that distracted like the beauty of a manual transmission you always have to do something you better be my dyslexic sister could only really drive a manual car because she would get distracted all the time and she needed to use a gearbox to like keep her engaged I probably I have yeah I get too distracted well still drive well yes I get distracted yes but so you have the simplicity but you also have the required engagement and I think that's something that modern people could really use more of well it's interesting because I was just sitting in the doctor's office and on I never watched the news but on the news it was like this Tesla was slammed into a police car he was uh using autopilot and on his phone and so I'm like okay that is not an excuse to not pay attention but that is how people are that's how we are these days yeah we've kind of been dulled to uh distraction yeah check out right all the different pieces of technology like it's over stimulating in some modern cars now the problem with driving an older car in that environment is not that you would have the same distractions but you don't have the same safety standard that's the one concern that like if I'm driving my kids around this doesn't have blind spot monitoring this doesn't have like that's all up to you yeah well the point I was making earlier is like as far as passive safety stuff yeah this si doesn't have it but active safety is just your eyeballs in this car you just kind of look and see and speaking of see what about something from the yeah it was terrible what about something from the sea at pacific catch I'm sure people have noticed that we just frequent the same restaurant you know what honestly creatures of habit when you act like it's new and exciting no it's not new and we're like no this is just where we go and we'll eat here until we're sick of it that's just the way we do things yeah so typically um we film our food before we eat it but today was different yeah we were driving a different car driving a different car doing different things we were hungry so just believe us that our poke bowl and cod salad were delicious now it's up to us to evaluate the family friendliness of the si with our car seats we've got one on this side and one on the driver's side so let's see how do you get access to the back seat this lever okay oh it's a one very efficient efficient motion yeah well it looks like a lot of room here okay that's nice because i don't like this situation i want to see if i can even do that on the driver's seat it's unusual for a coupe to do that no i can just move the back angle all right and then i'd have to manually slide really here i guess it's still faster than a power operated seat okay now let's put in our car seats i've got the bigger boy here and i will say this is actually way easier than i expected really yeah that's that was super simple got that in there quick here's what's really easy there's no tether no lower latch anchors no tethers no so we're just using the seat belt which is not great because i like the security of lower latch anchors and the tethers but it's a quick installation hey like i said in the lane cruiser you and i made it and we're children of this generation i really don't like that statement but okay i'm sorry we survived our kids will too okay you got your seat back in position there's daylight there between that and the car seat and now to do mine back angle first and then slide just a little bit that leaves her some leg room and yeah that's that's actually right where i would have had it normally for myself really yeah oh i'm closer up like but your knees aren't touching it's pretty upright though yeah you want more back angle you're shorter than five nine yeah well or if you have two kind of forward facing car seats so the si may not be built for kids but it'll make do what about adults in the back seat i'm gonna get in on the passenger side so don't mess with my driving position just that one lever that's so nice and the access point is very spacious now i will climb behind my driver's seat let me move this seat back into position sliding forward easy enough i do have knee room here and the foot pockets are nice but oh yeah the headroom isn't great head is pressed uncomfortably against the roof i can slouch a little bit but there goes the lumbar and i do have a cup holder no armrest nothing else yeah so if friends are on the smaller side they'll be just fine but big adults no go that'll do for the test fitting of people but now we need to see about fitting cargo with a run to costco so i was thinking about what was popular in the late 90s when the civic si was new like walkman hip-hop lava lamps and mini fridges so i picked up one of those along with the rest of my costco trip well i'll tell you one thing i'm not going to be taking it easy on this si is this gonna fit in there let's just get this out of the way first the biggest item doesn't clear the trunk opening and so even though the capacity of the trunk looks good that's sort of a non-starter there may be another way around this though because you see with this key inserted into this slot and turn to the left and the right i can dislodge the seat backs and fold them down now after just removing the head restraint and the entire mini fridge from its box i was able to slowly carefully maneuver the fridge through the slot and onto the back seats folded that's the most i've had to work for anything doing these and yes the rest of the trunk is plenty large to swallow up the remainder of the costco trip with room to spare for you guessed it i'm taking all of this packing material with me this is so fun trucks and suvs all you need is a 90s civic and a little bit of creativity this one is most certainly costco approved before i leave i might as well top up this fuel tank and the epa rated the 1999 civic si at 26 mpg city 31 highway and 28 combined and with this 11.9 gallon tank that would give me a fuel range of 333 miles and the beauty of having a naturally aspirated four-cylinder unlike a turbocharged modern motor is that i don't need 91 octane fuel i can make do with just 87 and with current fuel prices of four dollars and 19 cents for that per gallon it's gonna cost me just about 50 bucks to fill this tank unfortunately yeah no capless fueling yesterday was all about practicality and daily driving but today it's gonna be about fun we're gonna see if 25 year old performance is still exhilarating enough for the modern man let me spend a minute talking about this motor so i mentioned it's a 1.6 liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder i didn't tell you it makes 160 horsepower and 111 pound feet of torque it also has vtec which is variable valve timing what that means is that when you're just around towning it below 5500 rpm it's not all that exciting it's got enough pep but moreover you're just kind of relying on the fact that the vehicle doesn't weigh very much it's like 2600 pounds that is what makes it easy enough to get up to speed but really it's not until you get past 5500 rpm that you feel the vtec kick in and the motor wakes up and goes to work and it's kind of funny because in that way this old civic si is kind of like a new civic non-si like a sport model that's powered by a 1.5 turbocharged four-cylinder because in that situation you're waiting for the boost to build up and this one you're waiting for the vtec to kick in and there is additional relevance to that comparison because a new civic sport gets to 60 in about seven and a half seconds that's right around the zero to 60 of this car when new so let's see how close we get to that i've got my race box set up to record i'm into first gear i'm gonna rev it out a little bit tire spit off the line now rolling all the way out to 8000 one shift i'm gonna get gonna get there no i'm gonna shift again and there's 60 in 9.2 seconds so the number says old but the feeling says young and vibrant and alive i'll tell you one thing for sure i would shave off at least a full second if not for the tire spin generated by these 195 section hand cook all season tires even still i'd have to shift twice to get to 60 and so the 99 si not really the best drag race vehicle but then again neither is the new civic but who cares that's not the point of this car it's about using the low curb weight and the four-wheel disc brakes and the sport tune suspension and the antsy roll bars to put a smile on your face to string it all the way out to stay in vtech range while hustling through curves and yeah by modern standards there is a lot of body roll there's some more play to the steering but there's also a spectacular depth of feel and eagerness and energy and makes me want to bond with the character of this car it's that slow car fast underwritten by engagement that is so difficult to find these days and is something that i would very much like to hold on to from a decade gone by from two three decades gone by when sports cars just had a purity to them in the sub twenty thousand dollar price territory i want to go back in time and thanks to honda i have and i'll express my gratitude in person tomorrow at the honda bikes cars and coffee event hosted at their headquarters but for the rest of today i think i'll just do more of this to get to the show this morning i am going to be on the highway for a commute in 1998 would have felt like with the civic si so i'm going to quiet up first and listen for the cabin volume of which there is a good deal of it wind noise tire noise road noise this is a louder road surface but we just don't have much in the way of insulation in this cabin so i hear all of what's going on so this would be a pretty loud commuting environment i also don't have much in the way of driving assistance features though i do still have regular old cruise control i have to activate that in two steps i hit the cruise button here and then i set the speed here and having that in a manual transmission car is pretty nice because you're just going to be chilling in fifth gear for a while and um yeah when i say chilling i mean i'm sitting at 4000 rpm at about 72 miles per hour that also is adding to the noise and it's a place where an overdrive sixth gear would have really been nice at least i've got the radio for royalty reasons that's all i can let you hear of it and i've made it to honda hq they're just getting started here i'm still an hour before the show but already people are turning out maybe i'll park next to this s2000 or next to the other civics i've made it and shortly after i parked jeffrey parked his other six gen si the hatchback i love the look of that one and one thing i'm enjoying about this show is that it's not even all just honda and acura vehicles or even cars from a certain era that's the beauty of car enthusiasm is we can understand and respect other enthusiasts for whatever they enjoy quick pause for coffee from the power of dreams cafe here inside the main building and while i'm in here we've got to check out some of the honda and acura concepts that they have in their collection future visions from the past now i'm ready to do a day in the life on the 91 acura nsx and just look at these awesome design sketches and honda brought out some of the folks who make them well those are students but one day and yes i will take a quick break with an egg and pastrami breakfast burrito why not the show is in full swing now so here are some of my highlights r34 gtr yes please how about just the spotlessness of this acura legend interior i've got a soft spot for this generation mustang svt cobra gen1 crx gorgeous with the navy interior this honda street van tiny but with so much presence deliciously modded s2000 and nsx and this inconspicuously parked ferrari 355 f1 berlinetta and my days on two wheels are over but it's great to see it goodbye beautiful rx7 and goodbye honda cars bikes and coffee what a show well crew at the beginning of this video i pondered whether a 25 year old performance car could handle the needs of current life and after quality time spent with this pristine 99 civic si i can confirm a few ways in which it is up to task in a few ways it is a spectacular visibility ease of driving cargo capacity and fuel efficiency are all on par with or even better than contemporary cars however crash safety convenience features and straight line performance are all a bit substandard modern cars can spoil us in many ways but they can also disconnect us from the drive and that's a part of life we can cherish from ancestral autos like this one i hope you guys have enjoyed this day in the life and i'll see you again next time