HOUSE SPEAKER: Would the honorable gentleman from Arizona please begin these proceedings?

AZ CONGRESSMAN: Thank you. We have all seen the press reveals, the salacious front-page rumours, but is it true that you willingly participated in a scheme to have peak torque high in the rev range, against the Constitution itself?

1996 HONDA CIVIC EX: I don’t think this is the venue...

CO CONGRESSMAN: That’s enough! I will not tolerate you fabricating any further testimony to this Congress about your “government conspiracy.” Was it really so hard to just go on eBay and get a Chinese turbocharger or two, sir?

1996 HONDA CIVIC EX: My family was born with weak internals, we grew up very poor in the corner of a Canadian assembly plant. My brother, he... experimented with nitrous. They all did, back then, because of the Hollywood glamour. We all wanted to be Vin Diesel’s base-model Civic, even if we were a sedan. I took the occasional 25-shot at parties, but my 185-width all seasons never hooked and I didn’t have the fuel system to inhale. It was just too hot for my rings.

We just never got the same opportunity that a rich, American-made car would have had to develop that low-end torque. But we worked hard, and made something of ourselves with the small amount of fuel and oil we were given by our owners.

VT CONGRESSMAN: Sir, you and I both know that an impoverished youth in a foreign hellhole is no excuse for your continued activities as you enter the second decade of your useful life. I have been told by my aides that there are many after-warranty programs to equip small-displacement shitboxes like yourselves with eBay rods and forged Vitara-bore pistons. Surely you could have taken advantage of those?

1996 HONDA CIVIC EX: No, Congressman. After my first owner, I was sold to someone who... used me for commuting duty.

(assorted gasps fill the Reading Room)