The Honda stand at the 2011 SEMA show ought to give some hope to enthusiasts who may think Honda has lost its performance edge in recent years. Four projects in particular stood out: the most available—and arguably least significant of which—being this limited-edition Honda Civic Si coupe (pictured above) from Honda’s in-house tuners, HFP (a.k.a. Honda Factory Performance). With its full aero kit, stiffened suspension components, 0.6-in-lower ride height, and 18-inch HFP wheels, the HFP Civic Si promises the sort of intensified performance experience we wish the Civic Si innately possessed, but hey, we’ll take what we can get at this point. The interior is dressed up with red lighting, HFP floor mats, and HFP emblems. The Civic Si coupe with the HFP package is on sale now and can be had in any of the Si coupe’s seven available colors. Honda will cap production at just 500 units.
2011 Honda Accord coupe V6 concept
Accord Coupe V-6 HFP Concept
HFP also did a number to an Accord coupe, and not just on the outside. This particular Accord V-6 was fitted with a supercharger and a performance air intake and exhaust, upping output to a very hearty 335 hp and 285 lb-ft of torque. That’s a considerable jump from the standard V-6 model’s 271 hp and 251 lb-ft of torque. Honda has no plans to produce the car as seen here, but is floating it out there to gauge interest in adding such a model to the Accord range. The V-6 Accord, though, is already quick and powerful—we’ve run a manual-equipped coupe to 60 mph in just 5.6 seconds—so we have to ask: Can those front wheels even cope with that extra oomph?
Could a Supercharged CR-Z Be in Our Future?
Another interesting concept was not an actual car, but a CR-Z internal combustion engine displayed with a supercharger attached to it. Honda race fans may recall that Honda’s racing division, Honda Performance Development, has built a CR-Z hybrid racer powered by a turbocharged 1.5-liter engine, which, when combined with the CR-Z’s electric powertrain, yields between 178 and 200 hp, depending on state of tune. Honda said the supercharged 1.5-liter CR-Z engine concept “builds upon HPD’s experience with the turbocharged HPD CR-Z Racer,” and “represents HPD’s continued exploration of the performance potential of the CR-Z.” We’d like Honda to drop that into a street-worthy CR-Z and let us do some performance exploration of our own.
2012 Civic Coupe HPD body
2012 Honda Civic Coupe Body-in-White
Finally, Honda formally announced the sale of body-in-white versions of the 2012 Civic coupe, as well as a suite of complementary bolt-on parts, thus allowing amateur race teams to build new race cars without having to tear apart a production car. The cost for the Civic coupe’s skeleton is a reasonable $3500, but that does not include any of the stuff needed to actually turn it in into a bona fide race car, like, say, an engine. To that end, in early 2012, HPD will begin selling engines, transmissions, suspension and brake components, and more, all specifically engineered to help the Civic compete in SCCA World Challenge and Grand Am’s Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge events. Since July, Honda has sold more than half a dozen bodies-in-white. Undoubtedly, many more will follow.
