I?
With this in mind, the Civic Vti had to be a dominator in its up to 1600cc class! Well, not quite. As it turned out the engine needed constantly high revs, which made it wear quickly. As well at least the front suspension was not built with rallying in mind, nor was Honda about to do anything about it, they simply were never interested in rallying. So at the bottom line, when the Honda lasted the distance, it was near guaranteed a class win in N2 (group N up to 1600cc), where it was mostly entered. But the class win was not a guaranteed thing as Honda's with blown engines or without front wheels became some kind of a common sight along the rally stages.
Until now old Honda Civic models with their traditional V-Tec (variable valve timing) were powerful high revving screamers with reliability issues. Now we have the striking new (FN) design Honda Civic, that also in comparison to previous versions features a 2.0 rather than a 1.6 engine, with 201BHP standard. Unfortunately on the first IRC rallies this brand new Honda Civic still seems very unreliable.
http://www.rallye-info.com/carmodel.asp?car=272
