I Beeped and Heard the Name ,"Valentina"

I'm a little overdue on this review. You see, Stella wasn't exactly on her last legs by any means, but I wanted to go to the dealership and check out their stock for their Labor Day sale. I pulled up and saw an incredibly beautiful lapis lazuli blue with a wicked light grey pinstripe coupe parked in the front. I admired the labels and statistics, and then my dealer friend tossed me a pair of keys.

"What do you think?" he asked. I nodded. "It's pretty hot." "Oh yeah?" as he motioned, "Get in. We're taking it for a drive."

Pricing
I am leasing a new 2007 Honda Civic LX valued at just over $21,000 after freight, delivery, and taxes. This particular model came with add-ons such as a weatherproofing interior, wiring compatibility with iPod, pinstripe and car accent detailing, Since I'm a repeat customer with the dealership, my closing costs fell a little bit over $18,000.

I am on an extended 60-month lease. I chose a longer lease because I plan to spend the next few years in a doctorate program, so I need an affordable payment. I paid $1,000 down and a bit of a heftier payment at $275 a month. Thankfully, my financial situation has improved since the last time I leased a car, so the payment is much more manageable.

Specifications
Flip up the hood and you'll find the notoriously green-minded ULEV (Ultra Low Emissions) engine, a good transition into the hybrid and futuristic fuel cells that would definitely put this vehicle out of the affordability class it can still claim on a good way. It offers up 140-horsepower, 1.8-liters, and 4-cylinders of heft. She certainly has a little more weight in the front. The car designers improved up the throttling system. Described as an electric pin model, the vehicle will reside in lower gears longer in order to provide a dramatic surge when you need it. Flooring the car, you'll get barely a moment of hesitation before you'll hear a quickly responsive drop in gears and a powerful acceleration forward.

I might be a heavy foot, suffice to say. I can usually get upper 20s per gallon city, and maybe 35-36 on the highway depending on how well I behave. Gas being $3.00 a gallon though, it's still a pretty good efficiency rating.

The tradeoff is in a bit of extra weight making acceleration seem a little sluggish, but you'll probably notice this more while accelerating into acceptable speed limits for city driving. Because you'll (hopefully obey the law and) top out at 35, maybe 45 miles an hour, the throttle won't engage as hard unless it needs to. I just attributed the difference, again, to the added weight of the car. It's fair, for a consumer that isn't too worried about street racing.

This model is a 5-speed automatic with front wheel drive. My car was equipped with sport utility tires by Pirelli, so it continues to get great handling and manueverability. In fact, what surprised me was how tightly it would handle, turn, and manuever at relative stationary movement. Laugh if you will, but I've rolled over a couple more curbs than I care to admit because it didn't require any more than a couple of wheel revolutions to make even tight turns.

Interior
This is where it gets beautiful, folks. The 2007 coupe adopts a futuristic interior model. Slip into the bucket seat and you're instantly greeted with a dual digital monitor, color coordinated with your car's exterior color. My car is blue, so my interior dials feature a soft deep blue and light gray dial style. I looked online for stock photos and found the gray exterior has a soft, pastel purple shade.

It's all digital, too. Speedometer, odometers (long distance and individual trip), gas gauge -- the works. You can adjust the interior brightness of your gauges with a neatly placed button on the left. The controls are fairly intuitive. Just tinker a bit and you'll get it. Like most gas meters, the gauge actually doesn't give a true reading. On my 13-gallon tank, my gas light will come on after I expended about 11. The car is also equipped with power windows and locks.

A delightful add on is the interior diagnostics panel. Scroll through your odometer readings and it will show you a percentage of oil life remaining on your car. (This model encourages an oil change at 8,000 miles though you can ride it to 10K with little penalty.) Other problems such as low battery, dirty filters, low coolant, etc. are readily flashed to the left of the digital readouts. It's a smart feature on an already low-maintenance vehicle.

The LX comes equipped with cruise control and a deluxe CD player. My car just has the single CD player. The radio dial features 12 preset buttons, AM/FM tuning, no exterior antenna, and it can play audio CDs and MP3/WMA CDs. I burned a disc with over 500 MP3s and arranged them into different playlist folders. Slip it in and you get hours upon hours of music at no problem. If you'd rather forego the burning process, the car features a LiveWire concept -- you can plug in your MP3 player (i.e. iPod) into an adapter below and control your player's settings directly on the CD console.

Enjoy your soft, comfortable cloth seats, equally bucketed in the back for your passengers and suitable interior storage compartments. The back seats fold down completely for extra trunk space. It's certainly roomy back there, but the drawback is that it just isn't open enough to accommodate large, oblong items. I had a hell of a time fitting a 6' x 6' painting, though I could easily load my TV, computer, clothes, books, etc. for a move a few months ago. Go figure.

The Driving Experience
I really enjoy it. I have to admit some vanity here. It's definitely a different design, a lot more streamlined and sporty and chic, and it's always nice to drive around in something quite attractive on the road. My most pleasure has been drawn from long, open road trips. I can speed along with the windows down or kick back and let gentle heat waft through the car. It's a supremely comfortable ride. Especially when you push the pedal past 80, 90 miles per hour, you hardly feel it, quite the different impression when you start out. It's so sleek.

I really think the designers made a winner here. With most cars, you'll find little tweaks and irks that take some adjustment. I'm not super crazy about how the driver's border on the windshield is a little wide and angled just enough to create some obstruction, but I figure I can kick my seat back a little and it won't be so bad. I really feel like I made a good upgrade, and I hope that as Valentina ages gracefully, I'll continue to enjoy driving her like I did when I pulled off the lot.

Also, since Hondas hold their value and definitely reign at the top for performance, ease of maintenance, and consumer satisfaction, you'll make a great investment.