It's cool, it's hip, it's a ... Honda?

The marine-blue machine parked outside Kent's Great Wall Mall belongs to Tomo Nishiyama. Tattooed with decals, outfitted with a punchy engine and fat exhaust pipe, it's got some of the latest in auto jewelry - a custom cell-phone holder and alarm lights straight out of Vegas. The license plate holder reads: "Badder. Louder. Faster."

The object of Nishiyama's affection? A 1997 Honda Civic. "In a couple of weeks," he says, "I'll change the rims."

Inside the mall, Nishiyama, a 22-year-old student at St. Martin's College in Lacey, is a part-time sales clerk for a store called Auto Freak. The store blooms with the latest in auto cosmetics for today's young road racers, many of whom now glimpse perfection where others have seen only practicality.

They're hot for Hondas. You heard right - those trusty, fuel-efficient icons of sensibility curled up in the driveways of suburban homes across America. You could sooner imagine Grandpa's laminated-scorpion bolo ties or Lawrence Welk reruns finding their way into teenage popularity circles, right? What's next - wood-paneled station wagons?

Hondas now strut down Eastside cruising strips and, on weekend nights, swarm the International District's cabaret of neon like runway fashion models.

"It's really popped up in the last couple of years," says Blair Greenberg, a Bellevue High senior whose passion is custom autos. "People are tricking out their cars."

The Honda Civic is king, with its cousin, the Acura Integra, close behind. But Accords and Preludes are fair game, too. Even your mom's old 1984 Accord can be spruced up with the right touches.

Not surprising, the craze was jump-started in California, where people like race-car driver Lisa Kubo have been shattering racing's barriers in supercharged Civics, hitting the quarter-mile mark in 12 seconds, then 11, then 10, and more recently, nine.

Suddenly, Hondas are cool. It's like finding out that the girl you thought was your sister is actually Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "Most people have a Honda at home, as a family car," says enthusiast Kevin Lau, a 20-year-old University of Washington student. "And you can convert it really quickly."

Parts are cheap, as these things go - not a minor consideration for a student budget.

"They're more affordable. And they're pretty sporty," Nishiyama says. "Look at this," he says, opening up an auto exhaust system brochure designed with a particular model in mind. "Everything's Honda, Honda, Honda."

Still, determined youths could find themselves dishing out hundreds, even thousands, of dollars for aesthetic and speed-minded upgrades - none of it, by the way, supplied by Honda itself, which was slow to catch on to the craze.

Kids eye ads in magazines like Turbo and Sport Compact Car and go spelunking through Web sites like www.nopi.com for deals on new wheels and intake systems or full-effect body kits that essentially turn Shirley Jones into Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Exhausts the size of paper-towel tubes are replaced with high-pitched ones the width of a coffee can, headlights with ones that look like glowing eyes. Meanwhile, those with the money - or their parents' help - might install high-powered engines costing up to $4,000.

Turbo-spenders include Arya Farahani, a 17-year-old senior at Bellevue High who has put several thousand dollars into his Civic - including a TV in the dashboard - since getting it a year ago. "Hondas are a lot more reliable," he says.

Total physical transformation isn't easy on the wallet. Not everyone can be Cher. Just the same, says Greenberg, "you could squeeze so much horsepower out of there you'll have to be holding on to your pants."

The car of dreams

If you were as stoked about Hondas as Chris Hanson and Jeff Cloud, you, too, might spend hours at Bellevue's R-Sports Performance Accessories, grazing through mountains of Japanese auto magazines.

"Hey," Cloud tells Hanson, pointing out one page, "look what this guy did with his intake."

Hanson indicates awe.

Cloud, a 17-year-old junior at Issaquah's Skyline High, is saving up for an Integra. "You can't ask for anything better than Japanese cars," he says.

Outside, the parking lot says he's right: It's full of modified Civics, Accords and Preludes, and a customer at the counter wants blinkers for a 1994 Civic CRX.

Hanson, 18, once drove a Civic, but he accidentally crossed the center line one night and put an end to that.

"He took a Ford off the road, though," Cloud says.

"I got 286 miles on a tank of gas," Hanson remembers wistfully. He has a 1993 Honda Prelude now, stylishly lowered, with a new intake system and clear bumper lenses that look like little moons under the grille.

He calls for Cloud's attention. "Look at what this guy did to his car," he says.

Muscle cars vs. imports

With pockets of the Eastside awash in spare cash, the campuses of high schools like Bellevue, Eastlake and Sammamish have become roaring battlegrounds between ever-popular muscle cars and spiffed-up imports. Chevy trucks with 36-inch tires stomp through packs of lowered Hondas and BMWs with tinted windows.

At Bellevue High, Greenberg says instructors are even getting into the act. One auto-technology teacher, he says, helped a student soup up an already powerful Honda VTEC engine.

By the time it caught on to the fact that kids were spending money to turn worker-bee Civics into buzzing hornets, Honda sensed it had missed a golden opportunity. So the company juiced up the 2000 version of its two-door Civic Si with more horsepower, snazzier interiors and colors like electron blue, flamenco black and Milano red.

It's a hottie of a car. "They're back-ordered," says Ryan Jupiter, general sales manager at Honda of Seattle. "We've sold every one of them."

But for some young speedsters, it defeats the purpose.

"I don't like it when the car dealers do that stuff on their own," Hanson says.

Echoes Cloud: "If I was going to buy a car, I wouldn't want it already tricked out. I want it to reflect my personality."

And personality, they say, is what it's all about.

"It's an art," Cloud says in his Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt. "If I can't paint, why not trick out my car? Some people do it through music. Some people do it through their cars."

Marc Ramirez bought a 1992 Civic, way before they were cool, and has since modified it with a stuffed animal. His phone message number is 206-464-8102. His e-mail address is mramirez@seattletimes.com