$HONDA

sunday edition

cars & trucks — by owner — low earth orbit

2001 honda civic lx, gently used, flying

first posted october 2001 · dog added 2013 · last edited from the car · post id 20011017-0418

You have seen this car. Silver Civic, dog in the window, rainbow over a road. The rainbow is still down there. The ad never closed. The car kept the dog and left.

A dusty satin-silver 2001 Honda Civic sedan in side view, flying above the night side of Earth. A Shiba Inu has its head out the driver's window. Blue flames come from under the rear bumper. A crescent moon hangs behind the roof.
fig. 1 — the listing photo. he has not rolled the window up. do not tell him.

The captions do not fit on a phone. They fell off the photo and landed under it, which is where they were always going to end up.

The same silver Civic from a low front three-quarter view, inside a gold ring, dog at the wheel, Earth and the Moon behind it, no lettering.
fig. 2 — taken by the moon. the moon has been asked not to touch the car. the round crop is the moon's fault.
odo 214903 miles. it stopped at the last road.
trip a 0.0 reset when the wheels left.
alt 417.2 km not miles. do not add this.

The altitude updates because the car will not hold still for the advertisement. Orbital speed is about 7.7 km/s, which is not a 0–60, and it is not on the odometer.

condition
gently used
make
honda
model
civic lx sedan
year
2001, seventh generation, the long-nose one
paint
satin silver metallic, plus the road it used to be on
transmission
5-speed manual
title
clean, in the glovebox, over a weather front
seller
private party. the party is a dog.

Satin silver. Four door. Five-speed. One owner. The owner is the dog in the window, and he has been the owner since the picture got famous, which is not how titles work and is how this title works.

Runs and drives. Also leaves. The leaving is the main thing it does now. Third gear is for towns. Fourth is for when the Pacific is in the way. Fifth is orbit. He has not needed reverse since the road ended. Reverse is still in the gearbox. It is a Civic. Nothing in the gearbox has ever quit.

Air conditioning with the micron filter. The filter is doing career-best work. There is no air outside the car and the cabin is fine. Cruise control is on, which is a joke the car is telling, because cruise was built for highways and the highway is below the weather.

No accidents. One atmosphere, exited on purpose. No rust. Dust on the rockers from the last time it was a car on a road. The road was in 2013. There was a rainbow. You saved the picture or someone you knew did, and then everybody had it, and then it was just a thing people remembered with their eyebrows.

Smells like dog, cassette hiss, and ozone. The dog was already the smell. The ozone is new. The cassette is the LX cassette, not a CD, because the EX got the disc and this car did not ask. Side A is whatever was on the radio when the radio still had a job. Side B is empty. He sings anyway. It is the one note.

For a while the whole joke was that a bag of the old coin was worth one of these. This is that car. Same sentence people used when they meant "not that much, and somehow the perfect amount." The car heard the sentence so many times it learned the next part. The dog did not need the sentence. He was already driving.

Asking: nothing. The ticker on the ad is $HONDA, the way a person writes a word in the title so the right weirdos can find the post. There is no price, no contract, and no group chat. If a stranger sends you a contract and says the Civic said to buy it, you are talking to a stranger, not to the car.

Test drive: look at fig. 1. If the dog looks back, you passed. He looks back at everyone. The pass rate is 100% and the car is still not for sale.

posting history

  1. 2001. Built, sold, driven to work. Honda's own line that year was that the Civic was "in a class by itself." They meant the compact class. The brochure had a driveway in it. Everyone involved was telling the truth.
  2. 2013. Dog in the window. Rainbow. Comic Sans, because that was the handwriting of the year. The captions were wow, such, very, much, so. They were funny because the car was ordinary. A 2001 Civic is the ordinary object. That was the entire trick, and it worked.
  3. Now. Same post. The car came back around the planet and the ad was still up, because nobody closes a listing they can still see. The captions still fit, which is rude of them. The car is busy. The dog is the same dog. The ears are out.

gently used flying

2001 Honda Civic

LX sedan · 5-speed · satin silver metallic

stock$HONDA

VIN 1HGES16581L000W0W a joke VIN. do not look it up. it is not a car.

came with the car

  • 1.7 L aluminum inline-four, 115 hp at 6,100 rpm, 110 lb-ft at 4,500
  • 5-speed manual, front-wheel drive, the ratios Honda printed and then forgot about
  • air conditioning with a micron filter
  • power windows, power locks, power mirrors
  • cruise control, tachometer, map lights
  • AM/FM and a cassette. four speakers. 20 watts, which was a personality.
  • 185/70R14 on wheel covers, not the EX alloys, because this car does not show off
  • dual airbags, immobilizer, ULEV
  • curb weight 2,465 lb, measured when it had a curb
  • wheelbase 103.1 in. length 174.6 in. the length still applies. the ground under it does not.

happened later

  • one Shiba Inu, driver's seat, installed by the meme in 2013
  • rainbow, original sighting, left on the road. it did not pass altitude.
  • road dust on the rockers, kept, because gently used is a kind of dust
  • thrusters, blue, a pair, in a place a Civic does not have a place
  • the moon, adjacent. the moon is scenery. scenery is not cargo.
  • captions in Comic Sans, still stuck to the listing photo
  • a name on the ad, $HONDA, which was never a factory option and is not a contract
Manufacturer's suggested retail price, when this was a suggestion about money.
LX sedan, 5-speed manual, 2001 $15,010
destination and handling, the driveway kind $440
dog, driver's seat, 2013 included
rainbow deleted
thrusters, rear, pair see fig. 1
total one civic
city32
highway39
orbit—

Miles per gallon, from the 2001 sheet, for the years when gallons were the issue. In orbit the 1.7 is a passenger. The thrusters are not on Honda's invoice. Honda's invoice was $440 to get the car to a driveway.

In January 2001, Honda said the Civic was in a class by itself. They meant compacts. The car took the sentence with it.

Parody of a window sticker. Not a Honda document, not an offer to sell a car, and not an offer to sell anything else. Honda Motor Co. did not build the thrusters, did not hire the dog, and did not write Comic Sans on the photograph. The $15,010 and the $440 are the real 2001 LX sedan manual prices. Everything after "dog" is the listing getting away from the lot.

questions people actually ask

Is it really a 2001?

Yes. Seventh-generation sedan, the one with the long nose and the little quarter window. LX, not EX. No sunroof, no alloys, no attempt to impress a parking lot. The dog is doing the impressing, and he is doing it with his face, which is the 2013 method.

How many miles?

214,903. The odometer is a serious instrument and it quit at the last road rather than learn a new unit. People who add the altitude to the mileage are how arguments start in the replies. The replies are below. Bring a better question.

Why "gently"?

Because that is the word the ad has always used, and it was funny when the car was a beater and it is funnier now that the beater is above the weather. The rockers are dusty, not wrecked. The dog has both ears. Gently is what you say when something has lived and you still trust it with your whole bit.

Clean title? Smog? Can I see it?

Clean title, in the glovebox, currently over a weather front. It is above the smog. You can see it the way you see a satellite: by believing the photo, or by looking up and being wrong in an interesting way. It is not at a lot. The lot closed with the first paragraph, in 2001.

Does the moon come with it?

The moon is in fig. 2 the way a mountain is in a photo of a car. You do not get the mountain. The moon has already been spoken to about touching the paint.

Where do I send the money?

You don't. Nothing here is for sale. No contract is posted. $HONDA is the name of the listing. A Civic does not have a treasury. It has a cassette, a dog, and 12.9 cubic feet of trunk, which is still 12.9 cubic feet, and which is empty, and which is in space.

reply to the seller

Nothing is sent anywhere. The dog reads it locally and answers in the only grammar he has. The seller translates, because someone has to.