(first posted 11/13/2011) A little while back, we took a hard look at hardtops, including the last affordable genuine hardtop sold in the US. And we touched on how the Japanese adopted the four door hardtop as the orphan that Detroit tossed aside. Some were genuine pillarless hardtops, but the hardtop “look” swept the industry, with frameless glass and narrow B pillars as well concealed as possible. No one took up the theme more fervently than Subaru, although they’ve dropped their frameless doors recently too. Perhaps the most effective exponent of the faux-hardtop school sent stateside was the Acura Vigor, also known as the Honda Vigor in Japan, from where it made its very brief and ill-fated excursion to the land of hardtop inventors.
The Vigor was closely related to the V6 engined Legend (gen 2), and was the third generation of Vigor in Japan, developed largely to sell in the Honda Verno dealerships, unlike the Legend, which was sold in Honda Clio dealerships. (the Japanese domestic market is a bit complicated). It has a five cylinder engine mounted longitudinally.
And with its transmission mounted (somewhere) below the engine, the five cylinder, essentially an Accord engine with an extra cylinder and a balance shaft, was able to sit quite far back in the engine compartment, resulting in near 50/50 weight distribution.
Anyway, it was thought that Acura could put the Vigor to use, slotting it between the pocket-rocket Integra and big Legend; a way to compete with the BMW 3 Series, with a lower price tag. And of course, Lexus was making hay with its ES300. Time to jump in indeed.
But the Vigor’s assault on this lucrative bot hotly contested segment of the market did anything but live up to its name. Should have been called the Tepid. Which is how some reviews at the time felt about it.
It wasn’t as roomy, comfy and “premium” feeling as the Lexus, and it just didn’t click with the BMW crowd. The 3 Series and the ES300 bracketed that segment perfectly, leaving no room for a hybrid of the two in the middle. After a short three-year run, the Vigor was history, to be replaced by the better-received Acura TL.
This reminds me of the ‘junior’ Lexus ES 250 that was out at about the same time, and is a spitting image of the Vigor. I think the 250 was a Japanese Domestic Market Camry hardtop.
I always liked the Vigor, partly because it doesn’t seem to have had the character lobotomy that the Lexus LS400s and Acura Legends did.
Like all JDM oddballs there a lots of these Honda Vigors in NZ but they arent something Ive ever taken notice of.
Not as many as there used to be – I always took notice due to the unusual (for a Honda) 5 cylinder and longitudinal mounting. And I like JDM hardtops too (pillared or pillarless). A few of our second-hand import Vigors came with manual transmissions too – fast, and apparently with the sport suspension they were quite good.
I had almost forgotten that these existed! I notice a resemblance between the Acura sedans of this era and the 1992-1997 (and even the 1998-2004) Cadillac Seville.
It probably would have made a better Honda than an Acura. The 5 cylinder was certainly an oddity for Honda. I never knew that it was mounted in a north-south orientation. I thought it was pretty pricey for what you got when new, but I would find one interesting now.
I didn’t know it was N-S oriented, either.
Years working on VW and Audis with the same orientation would imply having a hood as low as the Vigor’s wasn’t possible, but VW hangs their engines way out over the front axle, though it keeps creeping further and further rearward with each generation…
Saw one of these Vigors in the bank parking lot a few days ago. I forgot they existed, I see Legends of that era much more frequently.
I still see Vigors every now and then here in San Jose, although Legends are much more common. It’s like you can’t go a day without tripping over several Legends, both first and second gen models.
I can’t go a day without tripping over a first-gen Legend. Although having one as my daily driver right now may have something to do with that…
My 98 3.2TL shares the basic body and platform with the Vigor. The longitudinal V6 really transforms this car into a nice cruiser. Smooth in many respects at only 138k miles.
Oh yeah, the transmission is behind the engine with the differential under the engine. A bit more power robbing for fwd but more balanced than its replacement.
I like that both my modern Japanese vehicles have frameless windows.
2 cents worth:
1.) I always thought the best feature of this car was the ASTONISHING length on the front fender behind the wheel opening. Almost RWD in proportion – made possible by the set-back longitudinal motor. That and the low, old-school Honda hood overcomes the bete noir of FWD styling: that ridiculous front overhang.
2.) When we car people bitch and moan about Honda losing its way, THIS is what we’re talking about. Sure, the Vigor didn’t set the world on fire, but I think it embodies the engineering creativity and, yes, playfulness of the “Old Honda.”
Put pennies 1 and 2 together, and see how the mighty have fallen:
Wow, I was about to write the same thing as in your #1! A long front wheel-to-cowl always looks good. The first-gen Seville is among many others as cars that got it right in my mind.
The other thing that I always liked about the Vigor is that (especially at the time) the hood looked impossibly low over the front fenders. The whole body below the greenhouse looked low. Made the car look much leaner and longer than it was. Jag XJ6s of a certain age had this same quality to an extent, as well as a few other Honda and Nissan models.
This Vigor doesn’t look nearly as slinky as it once did, but they’re still a nice looking car. It’s hard to find one in any kind of shape around here, though.
Exactly what I love about driving the car is the low cowl and the short overhangs! Well that and the quality feel of controls.
“Traditional” Honda double wishbone suspension with little travel I suppose. Have not seen these before, I assume they are a ‘size’ smaller than the Legend? Surely they would have been better to have used a small capacity V6 than the inline 5 though
The first gen 3.2TL was just that… An updated Vigor with the C32B, so a shortened Legend. Maybe the 2.7 would have been better then the 2.5 I5 but supposedly they handled nicely for what they were. Not a high powered car but a nice flat torque curve, that still will move nicely.
There actually was an Acura 2.5TL as well, sharing the Vigor’s 5 cylinder engine. The funny thing was that Audi/NSU had been fooling around with this layout for 30 years and was still at least 15 years from making it handle and package as well as Honda did in their one short-lived attempt.
2 cents well spent! spot on…
always thought these were good looking, almost bought on last spring, may have had a stick…
many posted that their brakes were troublesome, and US mpg fair to poor.
Another endorsement of point 1! Part of why I like the Infiniti G35 is that the proportions of its snout shouts RWD.
My mom had one for 10 years before replacing it with a Camry. She had a 1st gen Acura Legend before buying the mid-level Vigor.
Thoughts? It lasted longer than any vehicle my mom ever drove. To say she beat the crap out of it and neglected the thing would be an understatement. The interior was so worn out by year seven that she resorted to just putting old blankets in the back to make it presentable.
I drove the thing during it’s earlier days. It felt… small… the steering was probably the most user friendly I had ever seen out of any vehicle from that time. But it wasn’t especially fast and the drive didn’t feel the least bit sporty. It was perhaps the least ‘vigorous’ Honda made up to that time.
This wasn’t one of Honda’s better vehicles; especially for the $25,000 price tag.
I wholeheartedly approve of this “Hardtop” theme!
Please, Sirs, I want some more!
I had a 91 Legend so I did notice the Vigor when it was being sold in the U.S.. But even then, I didn’t see too many of them about. One rumour I heard about the Vigor is that the 5 cylinder engine is actually Honda’s old V10 racing engine sawn in half. The v6 in my car was transverse mounted, so its weird to see an Acura with an old school engine orientation (North-South).
Its too bad about Acura, they no longer make attractive cars. Honda has followed the crowd by developing what can be considered useless SUVs and crossovers and ugly sedans. Why do all their cars have to have a chrome beak on the front of them? Looks awful!
@Brian:
I believe with your 1991 Legend, you had the distiction of owning the last coupe built with roll-down rear windows. I’m jealous!
E-Class Mercedes (C124) lasted up until 1995. And it was a hardtop proper too.
Wow, this would be an amazing conversation to imagine at a library or coffee shop, and then Acubra walks by and nonchalantly offers this little tidbit. Thank you, internet!
Now that you mention it, didn’t a 1985 BMW 635CSi have one? The glass was so large, it must have only opened a small amount of travel.
The internet is great!
BMW 840/850/860 lasted until 1999, and was true pillarless hardtop with fully opening rear windows
Mercedes is the winner in that category, I’m afraid. The current W216 and previous W215 CL-class coupes are true hardtops with fully retractable rear windows. The recent C207 E-class coupe and C209 CLK coupe were also true hardtops (as may have been the W140 S-class coupe, not sure) but I don’t know if the windows fully roll down on those. They go at least partway though.
I vote this as one of the most awkward nameplates for a car in car history.
Well, one could always add a couple of ‘A’s, and lose the ‘O’ 😉
Here in CT i see these all the time actually thinking about it I bet CT was one of Acuras larger market. Snow caused many buyers to go FWD and semi luxury is and has been the it thing here for a while.
“And with its transmission mounted (somewhere) below the engine, …”
I believe the Vigor had the transmission behind engine. Output of the transmission goes into a short drive shaft forward into a differential mounted mostly below the engine. One of the half shafts goes through a tube in the oil pan.
It’s one of the few FWD cars with a “front mid-engine” design.
This is correct.
I have found memories of my dad’s ’93 Vigor. I learned how to drive stick in it. I never appreciated its odd characteristics back then (longitudinal engine etc.)
It survived about 11 New England winters before it developed serious rust holes in the body. What a shame though, as it still drove nicely and reliably.
I always thought the proportions on these things were very Jag-esque. Not so much THIS one, but, you know. When they were new.
Was the weight distribution 50/50? I remember when these came out it was more like 59/41 or so, which was still pretty good a front-driver — Car and Driver or Road & Track quoted Honda as saying they thought it was about optimal for FWD.
It was pretty close to 60/40 or 59/41
Not bad for a fwd car, but nothing remarkable either. A lot of current fwd’s are 60/40 or better without resorting to the north/south layout.
I read, “No one took up the theme more fervently than Subaru, and I cringe every time I see Stephanie swing shut the door of her Forester by the glass,” and feel your pain in a different way. With the windows open a bit, my wife SLAMS THE DOOR WITH ALL HER MIGHT on our well-traveled Impreza. Then I read, “Twelve years later, it shows no signs of suffering that multiple times daily,” and breathed a sigh of relief. It’ll take a while to get rid of that cringe, however…
The WORST part of the Subaru windows is SMACKING your face on the (near) invisible door edges! Thank god, Subaru went back to door frames on the new models!
Shame that such a mechanically fascinating (front-wheel-drive, longitudally-mounted 5-cylinder-powered) car ended up being so ‘ordinary’ to drive, according to period reviews. Perhaps that’s a backhanded compliment to Honda’s 1990s engineers.
This car should have never been a four-door. Most uncomfortable rear passenger area ever.
I love my 94 vigor!!! Bought it in February 2012 with only 101,000 miles on it. Clean body and perfect interior. All I can say is I am a little impressed with it’s road handling and the engine is quite smooth. I always loved the body style since I first saw one back in the day. I’m lucky to have come accross an original,one owner, un-molested one in this condition with so few miles for 2,500 bucks! Keep Vigors alive!!!!!! Rare, YES. Hard to find parts, YES. But that’s the price you pay when you want sometyhing that not many have…..right?
Vigor was (is) a rare breed. It sold only 43,000 units in its 3 model years compared to the Legend’s 477,000 units in its 10 model years. I had a 1994 Vigor GS in white on black with the 5-speed manual. It was more nimble and fun to drive than the Legend. And of course I loved the frameless windows. The one pictured in this article is my favorite color – Arcadia Green. It was a color shared with the Accord SE of the same era.
I love that color green too! In addition to the Legend’s Canterbury Green and Sherwood Green. Basically I love all ’90s green hues.
my neighbor has one of these with about 10K miles on it. She doesn’t drive very much and it is always in the garage so it still looks showroom new.
Had a girlfriend with one of these in high school. It was pretty peppy, but had a pretty rough shifting transmission and seemed way too similar to my other friend’s 92 Accord Sedan to justify the price difference.
I was born in 1977, the year that GM, (who was the first to market both two door hardtops in 1949 and 4 door hardtops in 1955) stopped to make them. And I always admired the cars that had no center posts. Buick, my favorite car brand pioneered both styles as it was the first GM division to offer a hardtop on the ’49 Roadmaster but that was soon followed by Cadillac and Olds later that year. In 1955, a record-selling year for Buick was the year when Buick introduced 4 door hardtops (along with Oldsmobile who sold in less significant numbers that year).
While both Ford and GM had been slowly phasing out this feature from their cars starting in the early seventies, The Japanese manufacturers began to catch on and introduced many hardtop coupes. Nissan even had 4 door hardtop versions of it’s Gloria which were made until the early nineties. Unfortunately, these cars were never marketed in North America. Most other Japanese manufacturers never had true hardtops but they did market cars with a discrete center post and frame-less door windows. Mazda had the 929 Serenia, Lexus had that on the first generation ES-250, so did the Subaru Legacy.
Here’s a picture of a real 4 door hardtop Nissan Gloria.
The image didn’t upload with my comment. Second try!
Hopefully, it works now!
The transmission is behind the engine, not under the engine. There is a short driveshaft going *forward* to a differential under the engine … The manual transmission version should have nice shift feel, since it’s a direct connection, just like a front engine / rear drive car.
Honda could have achieved the same “long hood, short overhang” look with a transverse engine. Just need to put the differential ahead of the transverse engine/trans. (like the Scion iQ)
I think the Vigor’s appeal in the U.S. was severely hampered by its styling. It’s styling, while attractive, didn’t break any new ground. While conservative styling was okay for the full-size Legend, the Vigor’s competitors were much more striking in design, making it look dated when it first arrived. It also looked all to similar to the Accord.
I will say though that I personally like the Vigor’s styling. The engine layout also resulted in a long hood that made its proportions look more elegant than either the ES or 3-Series.
While you describe it as “not roomy”, I can personally attest that a ’93 Vigor is perfectly capable of carrying 7 teenagers out on a night of mischief, toilet-papering their teammates’ houses. If I correctly recall (it was my freshman year of high school), that Vigor was also the same Arcadia Green as the featured car. 🙂
This was one of those Honda Accord based variations much in the same way the Acura Integra were to the Honda Civic.
My daily driver…
A couple of late addenda and corrections:
The Honda Vigor line actually dated back to 1982. It was sold through Honda Verno stores with the Prelude, Ballade, and Quint (Quint Integra). Until 1990, the Vigor was really just a (four-cylinder) Accord with some minor exterior and trim changes.
The first five-cylinder Vigor (and the similar Accord Inspire, which was sold through the Clio network) was launched in late 1989. It was offered only with the 2-liter version of the five-cylinder engine to stay in the cheaper five-number JDM tax class. As Kita Ikki noted above, the gearbox was not under the engine — it was behind the engine with a shaft running forward to the diff and a halfshaft through the oil pan.
When the new cars showed up, the laws had just changed, which took the bite on bigger three-number cars from heart-stopping to merely expensive, and Honda decided to sell the Vigor as an Acura in the U.S. Honda hastily came up with a wide-body version with the 2.5-liter five, launched that in the States, and then relaunched in Japan.
The five-cylinder Vigor and Inspire were based on the CB Accord platform, not the Legend, although because the drivetrain had very little in common with the four-cylinder cars, the overall commonality ended up being very low, even though the Vigor looked like the Accord.
The Vigor replacement was renamed Saber in Japan (there was still an Inspire for Clio dealers). Honda still had the 2.0 and 2.5-liter fives in Japan as well as the 3.2; we got the 2.5 and 3.2.
Honda HAD a 2-liter V-6, the C20A, which was used in the first-generation Legend. They essentially dumped it in favor of the five, which was more powerful (even as a 2-liter), but I don’t think ever sold that well in the home market.
Looked way better as a coupe. I always thought the second generation TL was a really nice evolution of this model’s style.
A rare beast here, if you squint, it kinda looks like an accord
During a short stint as an Acura saleman in 1991-92 in Daily City, CA, my first ever sale was a black Vigor GS. The Vigor was a handsome car. Those taunt, low-slung lines reminded me of a modernized Jaguar XJ-6. So did the handling – so nuetral for a FWD car, hardly any torque steer. They were a tough sell, though. The styling was very conservative (is that so wrong? apparently, yes) compared to the new for ’92 Lexus GS300. Further handicapping the Vigor, its rear passenger compartment was considerably tighter than even the smaller, cheaper Integra 4-door. Quite a few customers liked the car until they openned that rear door. I only sold about 20 cars in those recession darkened 4 months, and only that one beautiful black Vigor.
The Vigor was a handsome car, very much in the design language of Honda at the time, looking like a larger, more athletically proportioned Accord or alternately like a slimmer Legend. Both of those were also attractive cars so that’s not a bad thing at all.
Part of the problem might have been the GS300, though. The Vigor was definitely handsome but the GS300 was just beautiful, and much more of a head-turner at the time. While definitely a product of the 90’s I still think the original GS300 is one of the best-looking Lexuses ever (alongside the SC400). Giugiaro, I think?
Yeah, the first GS/Aristo was an Italdesign Giugiaro design.
Vigors competed more with the also new for ’92 FWD Lexus ES than the RWD GS. I can personally attest that the backseat space is horrible, no surprise the ES greatly outsold it.
The “thin pillar” sedan with frameless doors is nothing new.Cadillac 4 doors had them in `65 and `66 as did some Buick Electras and Olds 98s.The Ford LTDs and even Custom 500 had them in `77. Not true “hardtops”, but close.
Bought a 5-year old Arcadia Green 1993 GS Automatic for my “ex” with 40k in 1998.
Rarely got drive it before we divorced in 2001.
Made it a part of divorce decree to get first chance at it if she ever sold it.
Finally called me this year (2016), and I jumped on it. Maintained by the book, including 3 timing chain replacements. “Everything” except the radio-amp worked like brand new.
In the 1400-mile drive from San Diego to Tacoma, WA through San Francisco, I was impressed with it’s vault-like construction, smooth and lively acceleration, sure-footed and agile handling, and it’s true 30 mpg economy at speeds ranging from 65 to 80 mph.
This is even than any car I’ve ever owned.
Very European in design, technology and refinement. Very 90’s Japanese in fully-featured spec. Frt & rear dual wishbones suspension and front-end engine placement equal easily the best ride-handing compromise ever.
My restored daily. 5 cylinder, 5 speed manual oddball masterpiece. It always made sense to me.
I lack less than 5k making 300k on this 93 Vigor. Body is still in great condition but front and back seats not good at all. Everything works great except the cruise control. With the large tank at 25 mpg in city, 28 hwy I’m good. The only downside is the braking system seems a bit off. Great 2nd car.