Civic: Ushered in the popularity of Honda cars worldwide 

Mine was a late 1st gen, 78 I think? I'm sure it didn't have the 'fog light' turn signals. Mine was a base-model econo job, didn't even have a radio. I did test it for fuel mileage once getting just over 55MPG highway being gentle, and 45MPG driven normally. Didn't actually test in-town, but had to be 30MPG+ there gently and over 25MPG driven hard, which is how I generally drove it. I bought the little beastie untested for $200 with a dead engine from a guy who swore it wasn't knocking before it just quit on him. The rest of the car was in great shape, but it turned out the bottom end was trashed. It was a common problem so the junkyards had nothing for it. On telling a friend of my woes, my friend said "Hey, follow me home". I asked why but he just said "Follow me. You'll see." so I did. Inside his house, he pulled the attic stairway down and proceeded to hand me some boxes, which I recognized as car parts. Then he handed me an engine block- one for a Honda Civic. On closing the stairs he said "There's your engine. It's yours. I'd put new bearings in it if I were you but the rest is good and it's all there". Thus began something of one of the strangest parts of my life which that little car got me through superbly. Those engines didn't have individual main bearing caps, but had an all-in-one casting complete with oil piping which everyone called a "cage". Some motorcycles had that, but AFAIK only those Honda cars did. They had a habit of cracking the casting on the oil feed pipe, killing the oil pressure. No fixing them, and by that late point in time Honda was out of spares. It was a broken cage which killed my car before I got it. Having a little money, I put in new rings, bearings, and gaskets as well as doing a valve job just because I could. I did some minor porting and polishing on the head, ,gasket matched the intake, and opened up the area of the carb base to fit a larger carb the same friend gave me, supposedly from a larger Honda. The stud spacing was slightly different but a rat-tail file opened the carb mounting holes easy enough. Same friend showed me how to advance the cam a couple degrees. I gave it a good break in, then it was time to see what it would do. I revved it up and dumped the clutch, the front end jumped up and a tire squealed for maybe a second then it jumped forward, revving out quick. I grabbed second and again it jumped up but began running out of steam near 30MPH. In time I learned to embarrass BMW 3-series drivers at the stoplights till we got to 30ish. For shame, their expensive German technology was just beaten by a mere Honda, which pissed them off but was great fun for me. The abuse bent the front strut shafts creating stickiness, so the suspension only moved for larger bumps. It rode like a go-kart and that's about how far off the ground your butt was, so the car gained the name "Go Kart". It also handled like one with super-fast turning slinging you side-to-side through the esses. Times got tough for me and knowing how fragile the bottom end was I stopped abusing the poor thing since I couldn't replace it. Money was tight for me and many weeks it was fueled on whatever pocket change I could scrounge, never running out of gas on me. That car was like magic, and for awhile carried me and two friends with all our tools to and from work, a 120 mile round trip daily. One day on the highway the throttle cable broke, and I managed to cobble the manual choke cable in it's place to get going again. Not your usual choke control, these had an 'auto-open' feature which pulled the dash knob back in about two seconds so you had to keep the knob pulled out by hand to drive. One hand on steering wheel, release clutch as you pull the knob out, let go of knob to shift, grab knob and pull it out again when the clutch engaged and repeat 3 more times, hoping no hills needed a downshift. The longest week ever was me waiting for the Honda dealer to get my ordered throttle cable in. It was a PITA to drive that way but kind of comical too. The car also ran 12" tires, which even then weren't always an in-stock item due to low demand. Kmart automotive had them, Fisk bias plies, and on sale they were $17.99 each brand new mounted, balanced, and instralled . They didn't last long but at that price they were fine, again proving how cheap it was to run that little Civic. I think I put two sets of brake pads on front while I owned it because of my sporty driving habits. I drove it about 3 or 4 years when a better job allowed me to get something better, so I sold it to a co-worker for $200 on a Friday. I explained that it has seen hard use and was nearly worn out but it should run awhile if he drove it easy. IIRC it had about 200K miles on it at that point and had begun to burn a little oil but it was still good enough to safely drive. Monday came around and he wasn't there, but a few guys volunteered that they saw me driving up the highway about 80MPH in it going north on Friday evening. Thing was that I lived to the south and didn't even take that highway home. The next day the guy I sold it to was there and he was pissed wanting his money back. He said it started knocking before he got home and his mechanic said the crank was broke, accusing me of selling it that way, which of course was impossible, which he finally agreed was impossible. I mentioned the guys who had seen him, not me, flying up the highway with it and I told him it was he who broke it and not my problem because I told him to take it easy and he hadn't, but I offered to come up and look at it and said the best I could do was help him put an engine in it if it was dead, which it turned out it was. Fate landed me a better job elsewhere a week later, I lost touch with the guy who had soon moved, and thus ends the tale of the "Go-Kart" which was the cheapest car I've ever owned, a dead bottom end to begin and to end with and a huge amount of solid and cheap greatness in between.

I like the fact that the video only focused on the first two generations. Great video!

My brother had an 83 1500 Civic S that he was gonna give me when he got his Integra in 92, but it had so much rust he ended up trading it in. He also taught me how to drive stick in it. Ah. Such memories.

My cousin had one of those old Civics back in the 80s. You couldn't kill that car, he drove it for years. Looked just like the one Hightower ripped the seat out of in "Police Academy".

Growing up in Seattle, those mid 70's up Civics were everywhere. Good little cars.

This was a good history lesson. The Civic is the car that will not die.

My first car was a new 1974 Civic hatchback. White with black interior. $2800 out the door. After graduation from high school in 1975, I drove it from California to Nebraska and back. I drove it for 6 years and sold it for $2500. Second car was a 1980 Accord LX hatchback. Pure luxury compared to that Civic!

I had a white 1980 Civic DX manual transmission hatchback. Added A/C, a moderately high-end Sony cassette player, Polk Audio two-way speakers in the door a “pop out” moonroof (purchased from and installed by Sears) and the color-matched Honda accessory cargo cover. I loved that car. In fact I sometimes even have dreams about driving it to this day (!)

Growing up in Hawaii these were all over the place. The local dealer married Honda's daughter and changed his name to Tony Honda.

My first car was a 78 civic. Indestructable. We just stopped driving it.

Great video. Cannot wait for you to talk about the later civics!

Looking forward to the next civics. I had an 86 Si and loved it

I saw a second-generation wagon within the past year, still driving about

Watched it twice. You did a great job on this one. Very educational like a history documentary. Thanks for going in depth and also covering the little details.

Quality content!

Lets give Honda some credit here. They went from being an unknown oddity brand selling something thatwas barely a real car in 1969. By 1986, just 17 years later, they were launching the Acura brand and the legendary Legend. Unreal. Two, this video is a good reminder that they have been their Accord and Civic for over and near 50 (!!) years straight with no interruption and no change in mission statement. The only other brand and models i can think of that can say that is Chevy with their Suburban and Corvette. Let me know if you can think of another. (Wait, BMW 3 and 5? MB S and E class?)

This week was an education. I saw the Oldsmobile dealership in the video and I heard the comment about being in an accident with Oldsmobile. That is why you buy Oldsmobile. To stay a step ahead. I was looking at the Ninety Eight and Toronado on the lot. Seriously, this was informative and an education because it shows how far Honda has come. they still have all the other industries they are involved like motorcycles, generators and more. They had potential with the luxury brand Acura too. The Accord and Civic have grown in size too. The Accord is as big as a downsized 1985-1990 GM car. Honda has stuck to formula and has succeeded. I like the fact you mentioned the British cars that were Hondas as well.

Wait What? The civic existed as early as 1967?

Nostalgia again! I love Honda... I've owned 3 Civics: a 77 Hondamatic (slow af but it got me to college everyday), an 83 and finally a 2011Si (which was like a rocket compared to my old 77). I've owned Honda bikes as well. My first was a CB 360... a 75 model.... then a 92 Nighthawk 750 and 2 Goldwings - an 87 and a 2002. That's a lot of Honda's! But wait... there's more! I also had a 4 trax 300 at my acreage and, lastly; 2 Honda generators. Hell... if they made snowmobiles I'd have bought a couple as well. Anyway... thanks again for the trip down memory lane.

First & second gen Civic not the roomiest cars around, but nice little cars anyway. Second gen Civic brought Honda up to the 3rd place in Greece, in terms of sales. These cars were everywhere. Honda never had such a success after that, although third gen was also very popular.

I believe I have seen a model kit of a Civic CRX but I have yet to build one...