The fun part of watching for Curbside Classics is that they appear in the most unexpected places–at least in Pennsylvania, where road salt and winter weather sends most cars to the crusher by their twenty-fifth birthday. In the case this 1987 Honda Civic sedan, my encounter was the result of a birthday party held for my daughter’s friend. As is always the case with this sort of vehicle, this Honda is still a daily driver owned by the birthday girl’s great-grandmother. She received it as a gift from one of her daughters when it was brand-new, just before her own wedding, as a show of gratitude for all that her mother had done for her.
The Civic has traveled all of 88,000 miles over its twenty-nine years. Unusually, the exterior is rust-free, and the interior is just as clean and presentable. I was on child-watch duty when the Civic’s owner left, preventing me from shooting any photos of the clean interior.
This generation of Civic debuted for the 1984 model year. Even Honda wasn’t immune to the “bigger is better” mentality – the wheelbase of this Civic was increased by five inches compared to that of its predecessor–but this increase was put to good use, making the car more palatable to Americans as a daily driver. Honda went four model years between makeovers in the 1980s, although modest updates were made for the third year of the cycle. For 1986, the Civic received flush headlights, along with a new four-speed automatic.
Honda’s advertising mantra in the early 1980s was, “We make it simple.” That ad slogan was abandoned for 1984 when this car was introduced, but the philosophy is nevertheless reflected in this car’s design details, making it a virtual Antibrougham. The horizontal taillights and panel, aero wheel covers and front ensemble all are simple and gimmick-free. If anything dates this car, it’s the Civic script on the back panel. It recalls the Reagan Decade, and reminds us that nothing becomes dated faster than the “high tech” look.
This Honda Civic, along with the contemporary Toyota Corolla, effectively dispatched the AMC/Renault Alliance, and sent VW reeling. It also signaled to the Big Three that they were in for a real fight if they wanted to regain market share, let alone push the Japanese back into the Pacific Ocean.
The CRXs and Si hatchbacks receive the most attention today, but it was these trim, no-nonsense sedans that convinced many middle-Americans to make the switch to Honda during these years. A subcompact didn’t have to be rolling reminder that you couldn’t afford anything bigger. To this Civic’s owner, however, none of that matters. Her Civic is a lovingly maintained and garaged daily driver. It is more than a car–it is a rolling reminder of her children’s gratitude.
It is refreshing to see such a well kept car after all these years, especially in the environment that this car exists. Obviously it does not come out during inclement weather. Having lived and worked in Jersey for many years, in the past, I know what that road salt will do. I had a 1958 Plymouth Fury. It took a lot of washing under fenders to try to keep it from rusting away.
If you kept a 1958 Fury from rusting away you certainly deserve a medal or something!! 😉
I had an 85 just like this. Major S**tbox with 138K when I bought it and about 175k when I sold it. It replaced my beloved and hated Peugeot 504. The two cars did teach me a lesson in life. All old cars cost a fortune to keep on the road when the clutch/master&slave cylinder/brakes/ac/exhaust are worn out and despite spending a fortune, you are still left with a s**tbox.
Mine was a major rust bucket as well having spent its entire life in Charleston, SC and its brackish water flooded streets.
I graduated engineering school, bought a new Nissan, and haven’t replaced more than a battery or tires since. I still think of the Peugeot sometimes fondly – that magic carpet ride. The Honda was just that s**tbox I drove during the last half of engineering school.
I had known some one in the late 90s who had a similar Civic as a first car. It was a dark grey earlier model like the ’84 with the big red rectangular taillights and square headlights. I think that he had picked it up in the $300 range. The back bumper was eventually bent upwards in a collision. It made a loud noise when it drove. I was later told that it was running on 3 cylinders and needed oil to be added frequently. It was still running when it was finally driven to the scrapyard.
The salt in Canadian Winters will eat away at these cars so it is hard to spot any on the road today. The older simple design and reliability are a big plus for Civic owners. I just never saw the appeal in slow cars at the time.
PA is not as hard on vehicles as other Northeast States when it comes to corrosion especially the further south you go. Though PA will flunk your vehicle during the safety inspection if it has a rust hole bigger than a Quarter. A family friend in Villenova had their 1970 Dart last about 30 years before the corrosion and mechanical issues retired it.
Just realized that license plate is one of the oldest in PA. The series started at DAA 0000
Note that the front dealer plate is for Cramer Oldsmobile-Honda in Middletown, Pennsylvania. This particular dealer went out of business at least 20 years ago
That dealer’s Honda franchise was bought by Ciocca Honda, which now is located on the eastern fringe of the Harrisburg suburbs.
Mrs. JPC had two siblings who owned matching Civic wagons. Both were excellent cars that were pretty fun to drive. No experience with the sedans, but this was quite a find in your area in that condition. Every car does indeed have a story.
When I pulled into the driveway, I immediately noticed the car. As you say, these are quite rare now in the northern half of the country!
This is about as “honest” as an automobile can get. Notice I didn’t say “boring.” If there is beauty in simplicity (and IMHO there is) this car is a contest winner.
My mother bought a new Civic just a few years after this one, in about 1988 or so. She loved that car, and would still be driving it today, if she could, and if my father hadn’t traded it in for a Saturn Ion without her knowledge. She was pretty steamed about that, for years, even.
I doubt hers would have looked this good to the end of driving days, as the Ion got several major scrapes and dings in its last couple of years, before she finally accepted that she needed to stop driving.
Saturn Ion?! Was your dad nuts (even if he was a highly-specialized psychiatrist)?!
Yes! 🙂 Especially when it came to cars. Worst driver ever. He was a Neurologist, actually. Electroencephalographer, more specifically.
Sorry, my bad. (But both are still the study of the mind in some way or another, amirite?)
Not your bad. Psychiatrists deal more with the mind (the thoughts/feelings of the brain). EEG measures brain wave activity, which is a useful diagnostic tool, but more for things like epilepsy and such that affect the body, and not for psychiatric purposes. Obviously, there is some overlap.
I see…
That’s funny. My parents friends had a blue ’88 that the wife had bought while in college. She adored that car all the way up to the day in 1996 when she came home to find that her husband had traded it for an Explorer. She told him (and us) that it was a trespass she would never forgive. I don’t doubt her sincerity.
I love stories like this.
Great find. I see one or two of these driving around here in my part of Indy but they are rusted to hell.
This just turned up on my local craigslist
http://southcoast.craigslist.org/cto/4476428867.html
Hmmm….wheels are optional at extra cost!
I met an old man at a car show a few years back with a black ’67 Nova 4 door, no options except the 6/’glide and an AM radio. He had bought it new for his mother who only drove short distances in dry weather and kept it garaged all winter until she stopped driving entirely sometime in the ’90s.
I had to ask him, if he’d known would he have gotten her a red Camaro ragtop with a 350 and 4 speed…
I had sex in this exact car. Would’ve been late 1996/early 1997. Owned a ’72 Beetle at the time. I had joined the Army but hadn’t shipped out yet, and she still lived at home. Borrowed her father’s car “for a drive” one night when we were bored.
She & I also had sex in my Beetle, which, by comparison, was palatial.
At the time, her mother drove a late 70s/early 80s B body Oldsmobile 88 coupe, white on burgundy, w/burgundy landau top.
Guess what car we begged on date night.
Lasted her almost a year, until she was rear ended at Pine Knob & the car was totalled. Her folks bought her a CRX to replace it (also had sex with her in that one!).
I’ll tell of my parents’ 1984 Econoline van conversion, and my adventures with her another time.
Actually, unless you had sex with Greg’s grandmother…then it wasn’t in “this exact car”. Just sayin’.
Hey-OOOOOOOO!!!!
The owner isn’t my grandmother. She’s the great-grandmother of the birthday girl.
The birthday girl, in turn, is the daughter of my younger daughter’s nursery school teacher.
I met the Civic’s owner for the first time that day.
My ex had one of these sh!tboxes….took exactly 2 months to shear off a key in the cam sprocket and wipe out the whole top end of the motor. Up until that point it was a cheap, tinny, slow and utterly miserable little…..sh!tbox.
Thank you, Paul, for running this story. All mid-1980s cars are quite rare around here. By this point, if you see a mid-1980s vehicle, it’s like to be a full-size Ford or Chevrolet pickup.
The owner of this car is very proud of it. She keeps it garaged, and has it maintained by an independent mechanic.
When I talked to her about this car, she eagerly shared her story of owning a first-generation Corvair, followed by a 1965 or 1966 Mustang. She was particularly fond of the Mustang.
Very cool – the car and the story both.
My first new car was the smoothed out successor to this car, a Maroon ’88 sedan.
I’ve since driven everything from a Citroen DS, a brace of Mercedes 300SELs, a Saab 900 convertible, an ’00 3-Series wagon, to my current drive, a 2011 Jetta wagonn
None of them were as fun to drive as tha Honda. These cars were like comfortable go karts – too bad you can’t say the same about the current Civic.
The Civic’s new ’86 front clip was essentially a matter of rationalizing the U.S. and Japanese Civic lineups. In other markets, Civics of this generation had flush headlights from the start, but those were still not legal in the States at that point, so Honda adapted the front clip from the Ballade (a variation on the Civic sedan sold through Honda’s JDM Verno dealers and also in some non-U.S. export markets), which had the recessed light treatment. The flush halogen lights became legal in the U.S. in 1985, so Honda was able to substitute the Civic fascia.
1984, actually. The Lincoln Mark VII scooped everybody with the flush composite lamps that year. I wonder if somebody at Ford got tipped off early by a federal regulator (or if they were the driving force behind the change?)
Took everyone else a year or two or three to catch up.
If everybody took care of their cars like this, the auto companies would be making less then half as many as are produced today.
Nice looking survivor there. Only 88k – barely broken in. Trying to decide which color code that is. Talk about “50 shades of gray” being available – sheesh.
It looks more blue than gray to me.
Identical to my first car. The first and last Honda I’ll own but I liked it none the less. It was a fun little car. Unfortunately it croaked at night on a middle of nowhere country road before cell phones.