Midlands Honda

Who is the head of R&D at Honda? A dynamic man by the name of Kotaro Shige. In a recent interview Motor Trend refers to Shige as Honda's Rock-Star Exec' and 'the Jimmy Page of Japan's auto industry'.

While you might think Motor Trend was just being complimentary to Shige who has been at Honda since the late '70s, there's actually quite a bit of truth to the comparisons. For example, in his teens, Shige played in a band inspired by the Ventures, Eric Clapton, and Cream. He has also recently married a woman 19 years…

The all new Honda Civic has returned with its two-door Civic Si sports variation.

Released at the 2011 New York International Auto Show, this high-performance Si borrows a muscle-car trick to boost its performance. Si implements a 2.4-liter four cylinder engine, which one could call a "2.4 a big block" as the hot rodders would say.

It's comparable to what General Motors did over 45 years ago when it placed a full-sized car engine into its mid-size Pontiac Tempest. Because of this it began the GTO and 1960's muscle-car movement.

Civic Si cranks out 201 horsepower…