The 2025 Honda Civic Si is the happy medium. It’s not too fast. It’s not too slow. It’s not too expensive, though it’s not cheap enough to get away with cutting corners. It’s new, but not so new that it’s unfamiliar. It’s manual-only, too.
The Civic Si has long been the perfect practical sports car. But as car costs and horsepower figures continue to rise, the question becomes: Can it keep up?
Why This Car Exists
The Si traditionally sits in the middle of the Civic lineup. It’s a sport-lite model that slots in above the normal commuter car, but below the 315-horsepower Type R hot hatch.
The Si nameplate launched in 1986 as a sportier version of the Civic with 91 horsepower, and “Si” stood for “Sport Injection” — originally marketing the fact that the 1986 model was the first Civic with a fuel-injected engine.
Today, the Civic Si has 200 horsepower, 192 pound-feet of torque, front-wheel drive, a turbocharger, and a six-speed manual as its only transmission option. And just like the original Si, that power comes from a 1.5-liter, four-cylinder engine.
Honda’s sold about 30 million Civics globally since the car debuted. But the masses aren’t running out to buy a manual-only Civic, especially in America. I like to think the Si and Type R still serve a valiant purpose: to give normal car buyers a reason to think the Civic is fun in every trim, because it is.
2025 Honda Civic Si: The Basics
- Price: $30,250 (base) $31,800 (as tested)
- Engine: Turbocharged 1.5-liter, four-cylinder
- Transmission: Six-speed manual
- Drivetrain: Front-wheel drive (FWD)
- Power: 200 horsepower, 192 pound-feet of torque
- Fuel Economy: 37 highway, 27 city, 31 combined (EPA)
- Body Style: Four-door, five-seat sedan
What It Looks Like
Every day, I ask myself: On the Si and Type R, do I like the 10th- or 11th-generation Civic styling better? Every day, my answer is different.
The 10th-gen Civic looked like a Battle Bot. It was covered in sharp angles, like the embodiment of a 12-year-old’s dream car. A lot of people didn’t like it, but I did — especially on the Type R.
The 11th-generation Civic is much more mature. It looks like an adult’s car, with softer angles and a less garish nature.
Both cars are equally cool to me, because they give people freedom to choose the body style that fits their personality. My personality is simply: “I can’t choose a favorite.”
What About The Inside?
The Civic Si’s interior isn’t revolutionary, but it is tastefully sporty. It’s almost all black, dotted with red accents: the dashboard trim, contrast stitching, shift-knob accents, cloth weaves, and Si logos. There’s a bit of piano black — a material that collects grease, scratches, and dust like there’s a gold medal on the line — but there’s no piano black on one of the highest-touch areas in the car: around the shifter and cup holders.
Instead, Honda used a classy silver-colored material with an etched herringbone pattern in that area. It’s one of my favorite piano-black substitutes, because it’s busy enough to conceal the dirt and imperfections that piano black highlights, but not so busy that it’s tacky.
But much of the Si’s interior is cloth, and I worry about how porous it is. It’s loosely stitched, and it collects dust more easily as a result. When the 2025 Si launched, I drove a car with under 500 miles on the odometer, and it had a massive dusty spot on the center-console cover. I did my best to dust it out, but didn’t get all of it.
The cloth front seats are comfortable, but because they have flat headrests (which is common in trackable cars, because they work well with helmets), I find myself leaning my head forward to compensate. That’s never a cute or ergonomic pose to hit, and I worry about my posture in the Si because of it.
The back seat is workable, even if not glamorous. There are no air vents back there, but at 5-foot-8, I at least have a few inches of legroom.
How It Drives
Mechanically, the 2025 Civic Si has a lot of similarities to the 2024. One of those similarities is the standard helical limited-slip differential for the driven front wheels. A limited-slip diff means if one front wheel has less traction than the other, the Si won’t just funnel tons of torque at it, like a lot of cars will — instead, it’ll send torque to the wheel with more traction until the other regains it. That limits slippage.
But there are some tweaks for 2025, because each new Civic Si is a minor evolution of itself. Those tweaks include: the rev-match system expanding to cover downshifts from second gear to first; updated safety tech that can better sense bikes; smoother inputs from the car while using adaptive cruise control and lane-keep assist; standard heated front seats and USB-C ports; new Google built-in with a three-year unlimited data plan; a standard 10.2-inch digital driver-instrument cluster; the shift-indicator lights from the Type R; more rigidity in the suspension, subframe, and doors; and “retuned suspension dampers take advantage of increased body stiffness.”
I believe when automakers make minor drivability tweaks like those, it’s almost impossible to notice how much better they are — or aren’t — unless you’re driving the old car back-to-back with the new one. I didn’t get to do that with the Si.
But generally, tweaks like those make the overall package that much nicer to drive. And if you’re buying a brand-new car anyway, you might as well benefit from those tweaks.
Each time I drive the Si and Type R, the experience feels familiar yet novel. The cars don’t change much, but the novelty comes from the fact that both cars remind me how practical, accessible, and fun performance can be.
The 2025 Si is all of those things. It’s not so fast that you soar past the speed limit immediately; it takes about 6.5 seconds to get from 0 to 60 mph, letting you enjoy each shift and digit change on the way up to speed. The shifter throw is light and velvety, popping into each gear with a teeny thunk, and the car floats into first gear so easily that it would be hard to stall. If you like automated rev-matching, the Si’s system is so smooth that you can climb up and down gears like a chauffeur.
The beauty of an Si is that it’s meant for any style of driving. The suspension is stiff enough to be fun on backroads without being punishing in the city, meaning the Si is almost as enjoyable (and comfortable) to drive in town as it is on a twisty rural road. The steering is weighted and responsive, gliding into each corner while not being overly twitchy for a daily driver. It has a little understeer in tight corners, but that’s to be expected from a front-wheel-drive car.
The new shift-indicator lights from the Type R add another layer of fun to the Si. They light up yellow and red based on RPMs to indicate when to upshift, and they make slamming the car into gear feel like a getaway scene in a movie (or like your sim-racing rig at home). The lights make you anticipate each shift and feel more engaged, because you want to hit the next gear at just the right time.
The only thing that’s missing in the Si is a physical handbrake, because Honda loves electronic ones now. But everything else in the Si is so fun, I can forgive that.
Does the 2025 Honda Civic Si Fulfill Its Purpose?
The Honda Civic Si has long been the bargain practical performance car. But in 2025, my biggest question is how much of a bargain it still is.
When I drove the last-generation Si in 2020, it had 205 horsepower and started at $25,200. When the 2025 Si debuted, it had 200 horsepower and started at $29,950. The price is up $5,000 in five years, which is slightly under the inflation rate.
At its debut in 2024, the 2025 Si was still a “sub-$30,000” car. That number was always a technicality, since there was also a $1,000 destination and handling fee. But when the 2025 calendar year rolled around, the base price went to $30,250 — meaning even our technicality is no more. The Si is now more than $30,000.
In isolation, I think that’s a fair price. But the snag comes in the Hyundai Elantra N: a young, 276-horsepower Type R competitor with a $34,250 base price. (I’ll embed a review of that car below.) In performance-per-dollar, the Elantra N is the better deal than either the Si or Type R. The Si’s price is creeping too close to the Elantra N to have 76 fewer horses, and the Type R’s MSRP is so high now ($45,895) that it’s in a different price bracket.
That doesn’t mean the Elantra N is for everyone. The Si and Type R are stunning cars, they’re great to drive, and they’re still good deals. The Hondas also have a long history of brand loyalty, and plenty of buyers feel more comfortable going with a model that’s been tried and tested over one that’s newer to the market.
To me, the decision comes down to whether you’re bargain shopping and where your brand allegiances lie. I’ve met plenty of car enthusiasts who always have been, and always will be, Honda people. And they’ll love the new Si. But I’ve also met plenty of car enthusiasts who have said: “You know what? The Elantra’s price is too good not to try it.”
The 2025 Civic Si is a great practical performance car, and it always will be. These days, it just has a fire-breathing Hyundai in its mirrors — and a little competition is never a bad thing.
Gah why am I the only person with common sense. I would love this manual civic because I have fond memories of my 89 Honda Civic DX. But I like it because it is cheap I won’t pay more for features that I like because they are cheap. I don’t need a 100mph car when I can’t drive over 65. I think car writers don’t know cars. Alanis likes a manual car that tells her when to shift and wants a manual hand brake. If you don’t know when to shift without a computer drive an automatic. If you want a buttery shift drive a Toyota automatic. A manual is meant to shift ASAP. I think Alanis is a car writer not a car driver.
Well that was certainly a patronizing gatekeeping kind of post.
“A manual is meant to shift ASAP” is a nebulous statement. If you mean “shift as soon as you won’t stall in the next gear”, that isn’t valuid unless you’re hypermiling a 20 year+ old crapbox. Autos and cvts have been more fuel efficient than manuals for decades at this point. If you mean “select a gear instantaneously”, you’re still wrong, DCT have been faster than manuals for years as well.
In any modern car, the only reason to drive a manual is that you enjoy the connected feeling. In my mind that makes you an enthusiast. Even if you think upshift lights are cool.
In this day of artificial everything programmed by morons, connection is highly relative whatever the transmission. I actually prefer manuals in a modern car for the reliability and because I hate modern automatics more than I like modern manuals. Modern autos are trash—lag at takeoff, lag to downshift, lag to respond to a manual request if it even responds, needing to downshift too many gears for that anyway, immediate upshifts even when you want to stay in the power band to pass, and constant hunting on undulating roads. They’re so bad that I prefer the experience of the much maligned droning CVT or a 40 year old 3-speed with its reduced ratio overlap and a simple kickdown relay to these garbage autos. IME, while the autos tend to be pretty close to meeting EPA numbers, I always widely exceed EPA with my manuals even with their fewer gears, and I’m not constantly frustrated by poor programming and design. I’d be fine giving up a clutch pedal if the behavior of these garbage autos didn’t make my road rage go through the roof. I was actually looking forward to EVs because of the lack of multi-gear transmissions, but they turned them into disposable, rolling phones.
I don’t need to know when to shift. I said it makes it more engaging and fun to have the little tricks on the dash. Please don’t misunderstand
What is the rev hand like on these two? When I replaced a Jetta TDI 5M back in 2017, I test drove a manual GTI and the rev hang was really disappointing.
The previous gen manual Accord Sport and Civic Si had pretty bad rev hang too, I think I read that they mostly fixed it in this gen, but I don’t remember where so I can’t cite a source.
If my wife gets her way and we move to Puerto Rico, I’ll buy an Si.
“Hey gringo, is that your Si?”
“Yes.”
(awful joke aside, Honda’s manuals are awesome)
Both of those would make me miss my ’16 Focus ST if I didn’t have the GR86. I’d prefer the lowest end Civic hatch with a manual than the Si, plus I think the difference in power is a simple tune away. Don’t really trust either engine any more than mine.
GR86 is good!
It’s not bad for a daily and has none of the “safety” harassment tech (the biggest reason I bought it). My FWD 5MT ’90 Legacy wagon with an aftermarket steering wheel drove more like a sports car, but that car is no longer with us.
If you’re not a fan of using a screen for normal car functions, Honda has nailed it in the Civic (and the Accord and CR-V which share this interior design). Real knobs, buttons, and levers for HVAC, lights, wipers, and primary safety features.
It’s a weird sign of current interior design trends that features like manual vent controls, a latch for the glovebox, and four separate power window switches on the driver’s door are notable, but here we are.
So fair
Yes. Because the alternative is a Hyundai, the fast fashion of the automotive industry.
If I was buying, I’d buy the Si. If I was leasing, I’d consider the Elantra N. I still don’t trust Hyundai engines over the long term after seeing all the oiling issues the past 10-15 years.
I know they aren’t the same audience, but for me the competitor to the Si is the faster Civic hybrid. Which you can get as a hatch, too.
I bought a slower car to get a manual, but I wouldn’t buy a car that was slow and a sedan.
Also true. The hybrid puts out a lot of power.
This. Unless you absolutely must drive a stick, the Civic Hybrid hatchback is actually faster than the Si and you get 45-50 MPG out of it. I drove one last weekend, sure fast enough for me, and I have 3 offers to make a decision. Should I get white or the smurf blue?
I had a 2022 Civic Si and I *LOVED IT*. LOVED IT. Even an hour before it got totaled, I was telling someone about how it was the perfect car for me. I liked it better than the Hyundai when I was doing my research. Not just for features, but the styling is much better in the new generation of Civics.
When it was wrecked, I immediately moved to just buy another one, but it turned out I could get an Acura Integra A-Spec for the same price (because of markups on the Honda), and so now I have the same car but with heated seats.
Noooooo I’m so sorry about your Civic. Hope you love the Integra for a long time
Alright as someone who owns a Kona N and has owned a GTI this class of cars is very near and dear to me so I’ll weigh in.
Here are the reasons you’d buy the SI:
1). It has a way better manual. If you’re one of those stick diehards who makes it your whole identity as an enthusiast and/or it’s the single most important part of driving to you then the Honda takes an easy W here. Honda manuals are as good as it gets this side of Porsche.
2). It’s understated. Like…extremely understated. This could be a plus or a minus depending on what you’re looking for. But it has 0 of the boy racer-ness of a lot of the competition.
3). It gets significantly better fuel economy. Like…it manages real world city mileage that’s better than real world N highway mileage. I get that neither engine is tuned for efficiency but the Hyundai high output 2 liter is SHOCKINGLY bad on gas. My lifetime mileage in my Kona N (which, to be fair, is mostly city miles and there are several track days factored in as well) is 19.9 MPG.
I didn’t buy it for efficiency, but it’s so bad in practice that I wind up wondering why I didn’t just buy something with a bigger NA engine. The N mill absolutely chugs gas. If you’re going for a backroad romp you’ll see low teens at best, and although nothing is efficient on a track I averaged 6 MPG during my last HPDE day and went through a quarter of a tank of gas each lapping session.
4). The reliability and residuals blow Hyundai’s out of the water. If you buy a new Hyundai make sure you have a sizable down payment because you’re taking a bath if you don’t. They depreciate like lead balloons…whereas I’m sure someone will hand you 20 grand for the Civic 10 years from now.
Here are the reasons you’d buy the N:
1). The auditory experience is on another level compared to anything else in this class. The engine rumbles at low RPMs, it screams at high RPMs, and it sounds like something from a class above it. I’ve watched footage of myself lapping and it really sounds like a bigger engine than it is. The pops and bangs aren’t to everyone’s taste but guess what? You can turn them off.
2). The Ns are track capable out of the box. I’ve tested this and know other people who have as well. I’d probably recommend you get better brake fluid if you’re going to be doing a lot of track work but you can literally take it to a track day as soon as it’s broken in and have no issues lapping all day long. Hyundai’s warranty for the Ns also covers anything that goes wrong while you’re on track. There have also been N cars at every track day I’ve been to.
3). The Ns are way, way edgier. Whether or not that’s a good thing depends on the buyer. But you can turn traction control all the way off (hell even in the sport setting mine has never intervened), they’ve basically done nothing to mitigate torque steer, they’ll lift off oversteer all day, they ride rough, and if you cross the limits you can actually get yourself in trouble.
Not like…first gen Viper or F40 trouble but they can get away from you if you’re not careful. Ask me how I know!
4). They’re way faster. An Elantra N will keep up with a CTR on the track (although not surpass it) and they’ll make a stock SI, WRX, or GTI look silly at a stoplight. Hell a DCT EN is faster in a straight line than a CTR. Considering the price point, they’re fast cars.
Anyway, both are great choices. If you feel like an SI is more your speed than a GTI/GLI probably are as well, although in my experience VW reliability is even more of a dice roll than Hyundai reliability (and yes member of Golf Gang, I know your specific EA888 is tuned to make 400 wheel horsepower and has never given you issues). Regardless you can’t go wrong with either of these and we live in a great time for affordable performance.
I moved an Elantra N between dealerships, had about 3 hours of seat time. It wasn’t bad at all. Couldn’t forget it was more than a base model though, even without giving it the gas the telepathic steering let you know it was something special.
That said, it had several ‘sound modes’ that let you make it sound like other things so that “sounds like something from a class above” it is because it’s fake.
I was talking about the exterior noise in my car, the Kona N. It doesn’t have all the silly/fake modes although it does have one of the dumb windshield vibrating sound enhancers. But from the outside at full boogie it sounds great for a 4 popper.
I thought of you the moment I saw the headline. Thanks for the comment. As a lover of hot hatches (and I guess the Kona is a CUV?), this was a helpful read.
They market it as a CUV but I’ve always called it a hot hatch.
The MPGs on your Kona are insane (I average 20mpg in my Mustang GT!), but it’s probably due to the turbo, I suppose.
When explaining Ford’s Ecoboost motors to customers, I always tell them “it’s either eco or boost; take your pick.”
I do like that blue paint, though.
I mean I’d probably average like 12 owning a Mustang GT in DC. My old hand me down V8 Suburban averaged about 13. Some of it isn’t the car’s fault necessarily, but even with the city driving factored in 19.9 is still very bad.
Good notes!
Thanks Alanis! If you ever find yourself in the DC area and want to make a video of my Kona N feel free!
I like the look of this generation civic and I’ve always been kind of a honda fanboy so I’d probably drive the Si first but if the N is as good as all the blogger/journo types keep going on about odds are pretty good that I’d land there. That said, the delta in price between the SI and the N is the same as between the N and a base GR Corolla…
I considered both… and then bought a WRX. Out of the Hyundai or the Honda I think I would pick the Honda every time but the Subaru had more emotional pull for me personally.
Fun car!
Had a new 8th gen SI for 6 years. Only car I ever missed after selling it. Still miss it, years later. Most smiles/mile of any car I’ve owned.
The 8th gen was Peak Civic SI
Subaru BRZ Premium for 3.15k out the door. Honda’s driver aids suck.
If you can make a Toyobaru work as a daily then more power to you. Unfortunately most people can’t.
Lifestyle choices have consequences.
I wasnt aware that wanting an actual trunk opening was a lifestyle choice. The BRZ makes the Gen 5/6 Camaro opening look good.
obviously it is if it works for some and not for others.
I don’t know if I have noticed these in traffic yet.
But man that shot of the front bumper.
So would I buy this?
Not if that’s how it looks in person. YMMV
It only looks like that if your eyes are 8 inches off the pavement. It appears differently to bipedal humans (a category which no longer includes many automotive photographers).
Yea that front bumper looks like an underbite in that shot. Woof.
Hondas are noted for their durability. Hyundais, maybe not so much.
My thought exactly, having owned a KIA and several Hondas.
If you want to lease, pick your poison. If you want to buy and keep for a while, pick the Honda.
Is this article serious. Its no contest hyundai makes trash transmissions.
I thought I was happy to see the Jeff Gordon jacket, but the Tim Richmond shirt for the win?! Go Alanis! 🙂
: )
I think the important thing is just to choose one and stick with it. Because… Honda makes the “Si” and Hyundai makes the “N”.
If you have them together, you totally have “Sin”. The convergence of these vehicles is pure heathenism.
Suddenly I want to get both and park them next to each other haha.
Buying both rn
I love these, especially the manual only, but man do I hate electronic parking brakes with manuals! I learned to drive manual in England and they insisted you use the parking brake all the time, especially when taking off on hills, and to this day I slowly lower the brake while throttling up and find that to be so much smoother. Can’t do that with an electronic one and I hate it so bad!!
Most of them have hill holder functions but I never quite got used to the feature in my GTI, always seemed like my timing was wrong and I didn’t pull away as smoothly as if I had just done it with a handbrake myself. I never did bother switching it off to try doing it the old fashioned way though.
Honda’s holder feature seems more subtle, even without the automatic brake hold feature on. But I’d still rather have a manual handbrake.
Good to know. That would make it better, but I just don’t see the point in having several electronic systems over just running one cable. But I also acknowledge that I am the old man screaming at the clouds at this point.
It’s likely cheaper for them to make the electronic brake and it can be incorporated into the computer systems because it’s imperative that absolutely everything be controlled by computers even if the advantage is theoretical or only applies to either helping the most incompetent or 1% of users at the expense of real safety in having a mechanical system that still works in the event of electrical failure.
I’ll chime in on e brakes and hill hold assist.
I was worried when I bought my car—a manual with an electronic parking brake—that I’d have issues with hills.
The hill hold assist works better than I ever could manage with a physical hand brake. You feel like you are on flat ground—you release the clutch like normal, rev like normal, never roll back and best of all, never burn through the clutch in panic.
At this point, I wouldn’t ever want a manual with a physical hand brake.
Good to know. Appreciate the insight. What’s the car?
It’s a ‘24 Mazda3.
It’s slow and has terrible electronic gremlins. I really can’t recommend it new, because you are just going to be waiting for the dealer to constantly fix warranty issues.
But it would make a great used car.
And for all its faults, I love it.
CarPlay may constantly disconnect, but the hill assist has been reassuringly reliable.
I have a 25 Mazda3 that I just love. It has the “brake hold” button which works amazing for hill starts.
Agree!
At some point in the next few years, I’m hoping to add a sporty car w/ a manual to the mix. SI / Integra, GR86/BRZ are kind of where I keep landing. CT5-V if I come into some money haha.
Thanks for the review!
If I had to have manual then N. If I had to have Honda then Hybrid. If I had to have AWD then WRX.
Hybris is sooooo good
You know what killed the Si for me last year? Driving the Hybrid back to back and realizing the Si just didn’t have quite enough extra fun factor (especially requiring premium fuel, IIRC, which is over a dollar more here). The Hybrid does almost everything really well, and with substantially better economy. It was a hard truth I had to face…
Si…fuera menos costoso.
Si…tuviera dinero ilimitado.
Si…my mujer no tuviera que conducirlo de vez en cuando.
Quizas, quizas, quizas…
I’m of the opposite opinion, the extra fun factor of the Si more than made up for the fuel economy difference (which turns out isn’t that vast). My Si has a 36 mpg lifetime average and gets up over 45 mpg on long highway trips. The hybrid may get 50+ mpg but downshifting, hitting a corner, and feeling the limited slip diff working to put the power down is awesome.
hybrid mileage is cool, replacing the manual with a CVT… not so much.
When I was shopping for a car last month, I drove the Civic Si and really, really liked it. It was between that and a Mazda 3 Sport GT 6-speed. I wound up going with the Mazda not due to any fault of the Civic so much as I really prefer having a hatchback to a sedan. Give me a Civic Si hatchback, and I likely would have made a different choice.
I mostly agree…and to the same comment I made above, the Hybrid is a lot sportier now and is available in both bodystyles, with several trims. I think the Si really needs to “lean into” being more different to separate it a little more. Compact wagon, even. AWD?
+1, though the now-dropped Sport Touring manual hatch did the trick for me, since I didn’t really need the sport extras. There’s always the Integra but I had a hard time seeing 5-6k more value over the Touring hatch, and another couple grand over that vs. an Si for the sake of a hatch. The hybrid like Ash mentioned would be the direction I’d lean if I were to give up a manual and honestly I was thinking seriously about it, but I did want one more round of rowing my own.
The CTR is a hatchback, right?
I can’t figure out why the Si can’t be a hatch, too.
It makes no sense.
The hatch rocks
I haven’t driven the Hyundai or the current Si. I have driven the Civic Type-R and it is an amazingly good car. So much better than any FWD car has a right of being. Much better than the 2017 GTI and 2018 Golf R I have owned. It is also the only current car that drives so nicely I would swap for my current Miata for one. The R is also a hatchback.
I think the Honda is a much better-looking car, and the Honda shifters are hard to beat. I don’t have any particular brand loyalty, but I would still lean to the Honda based on all the above, and my guess is that it will both hold its value and be at lower risk for mechanical issues down the line.
The Type R is absolutely killer
I drive a daily Miata, and it is the only practical car I would really consider. Plus, the hatchback is truly a benefit. For that reason, the Hyundai would likely lose out to the GTI or Golf R as well.