The 100 Greatest Things Of All Time: #100

Here at CC&P we're counting down the 100 Greatest Things Of All Time, using your votes, my noxious prejudices, a random walk ranking algorithm as per Freschi (2007), and the cold empirical facts of greatness as made manifest since time began. What's eligible? I'll tell you, you fat fuck. Everything. Everything aggregated or elemental, corporeal or conceptual, which one might modify with an adjective: in short, any noun. So let's begin:

#100: The 1989 Honda Civic LX sedan (manual transmission)
Who better to merge fuel efficiency with comfort than the wizards at Honda? This 4-door humdinger of a sedan, though not spectacularly novel in any single way, nonetheless perfected disparate mechanical and design challenges to create the perfect package. 92 horses, 1.5-liter 16-valve engine, double-wishbone suspension, and power windows. 98.4-inch wheelbase: a stretch limo? No-- the 1989 Honda Civic LX, haterz!

"The apogee of the economy car," proclaimed the renowned sculptor and unlikely automobile critic Ann Hamilton in a special article for Car & Driver magazine. Hamilton was not alone in her devotion to the 1989 Civic LX. Lenny Dykstra drove his Civic from New York to Philadelphia following the trade that brought him to the Phillies, later recalling the dreamlike drive down 295: "To be honest with you, I didn't think I could do it. I really didn't. I loved the Mets; I really loved them, you know? And the Phillies seemed a little, I don't know, kind of frighteningly masculine. So I thought I'd quit playing for a little while, maybe get into origami or something, I don't know. I had a faggoty little cousin who was really into making paper cranes. It sounded peaceful. But somehow-- I don't know how-- I got myself into that car sometime around 10am and drove down to Veterans for a night game. I always felt real good in that car. Safe. And guess what? It was a real ruminative drive. The engine purred at a resonant frequency with my thoughts, allowing me to see the trade in a wider perspective. I thought, fuck it. I'll play. And I did, and you can read the rest in the history books. I loved that god-damn car." It should be noted that Dykstra was driving a Mercedes when he drunkenly crashed into a tree two years later.

Plus, my Civic has 260,000 miles on it and is going strong.