If the Ferrari FF is just a little too common for you, a Minnesota man has what must be the only one of its kind in the United States – a 1987 Honda Accord Aerodeck, practically new with just 29,750 miles on the clock.
Prior to seeing this car, I only thought that Aerodeck meant “station wagon” in European Honda’s nomenclature. The more mundane Accord wagons that were omnipresent in my family when I was a child were branded as such, but I was far too young to ever known of this bizarre, elongated Civic hatch that graced Europe and Japan with its nifty, right-angle hatchback opening.
The 2.0L 12 valve motor may only make 98 horsepower, but the seller claims that the car has a brown velour interior and over $10,000 worth of receipts. Sounds good to me.
Thanks to Bring A Trailer for the link
Fast breaking news. This was Jalopnik’s “Nice Price or Crackpipe” on Monday.
Yeah,
The photo seemed like deja vu all over again!
Do the Euro plates suggest this isn’t street legal in the US? Its more of a car show/ museum piece?
I’m a big wagon fan, while I’d take 4 doors for practicality, this could be a cool look for Honda (vs. the horrific Crosstour, though I think the current Accord is fugly, too).
“Do the Euro plates suggest this isn’t street legal in the US?”
Until 1988, it was fairly easy to register a grey market import. But since then, the laws have changed so that it would be next to impossible to do the same thing today.
He’s selling it right at the 25-year mark, which IIRC is when NHTSA considers it a “collector’s car”, no longer subject to emissions or federalization regs.
So if I bought this, I’d be able to drive it on the road without issue. In PA and MD, I could even give it “historic” plates.
@ peteinsonj: Thou has spoken poorly about our lord, Honda. God bless you for the comments you are about to receive……..
Even Honda fans know that the company started sliding downhill essentially right after Soichiro died.
Honda, Acura lead all other brands in resale value:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2012/04/19/honda-acura-lead-brands-in-resale-value.html
These were quite the interesting car. Available only with a 160hp DOHC engine in Japan IIUC. Must have been very quick, as it weighed under 2400lbs. I very much want one even with the NA spec carbureted engine in this one. Lots more info: http://pauldesign.ru/honda/about.html
I do remember my parents looking at this in a magazine in the late 80s and saying it would be worth trading in one of thier twin ’82 hatchbacks for it. Too bad it never was available here.
I appreciate it’s rare, low-mileage, appears to be in good order, and freakin’ sweet (in the parlance of our times), but $7000 still seems a little dear.
This is all kinds of awesome, its like my ’85 Civic S1500 hatchback just a bit bigger… and in BROWN. The only thing better would be if such thing had been done to the late 80’s Prelude Si. When I traded my Civic for such a Prelude I missed having the hatch, but the bump in horsepower was worth it.
Too right, mate. If they’d given the late-80’s Prelude this treatment, I’d have bought 6 or 8 of ’em so I could drive it the rest of my life…….
So is it an Accord or an “elongated Civic hatch”? Front looks like an Accord, so I assume Derek hadn’t had his coffee yet when he typed Civic.
Never heard of this car before, thanks for posting this. Maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t think the asking price is out of line, considering how nuts the used car market is these days.
How in the world could there be $10,000 in receipts on a car that only has 29K on the clock?
Oh, right, maybe that’s how much it cost in shop diagnostic time to find that vacuum leak that caused the car not to idle (this car has that spaghetti-maze of vacuum lines as posted in a number of Murilee’s entries on this site).
I was wondering the same thing. 10K of work in 29K miles sounds like a new engine or trans was installed at some point.
I saw that car on the streets back in the day – very hot looking in person. It looks too much like the Civic in the photos.
How odd – I saw photos of one of these when new, in a comparison test in the British magazine Car, and that one had exposed headlamps. I wonder whether the U.S. front end was grafted onto this car after it was imported. As for the tailgate, didn’t the recent Dodge Magnum wagon have the same design?
Most if not all Aerodecks had the hidden headlights.
Ah yes, The Motor Safety Vehicle Compliance Act — another example of how business uses government to extend the shelf life of an outdated business model. For all the “big government” and “antibusiness” strawmen that are oft trotted in comment sections such as these, few ever mention the American consumer. I would assume that the number of people even willing to absorb the risk of importing a car on the grey market in the pre-1988 years was very small.
Mercedes Benz USA just got butthurt over some of its clients daring to partake in something more powerful that the parent company denies its USA customers.
I’ve seen this in countless other industries, and wish somehow that this kind of market interference would stop.
WTF is a shooting brake???
I enjoy reading TTAC, but am constantly annoyed by the weird jargon you people use. Even taken in context, and having read the term on several occasions before on here, I have not the slightest clue what that could possibly mean?
A “shooting brake” is a two-door station wagon. You don’t hear the term a lot because the style of car is rare, and this is because it’s a pretty dumb style of car. I don’t know why every auto blog seems to be in love with it.
http://bit.ly/FOeZkG
Was just going to say that it looks like a honda version of somethin much older and bigger in my driveway. Two door 57 chev station wagon. A 210.
The shooting brake is a name that never appealed to me but understand it was used for shotguns and hounds in Europe and produced for the gentry.
I suppose some folks are too rich to use a normal station wagon for that.
+1 re: the shooting brake concept. The Japanese loved the idea cause it’s all… British- and noble-sounding.
In terms of the overall Accord range, this is probably the equivalent of the Crosstour today.
This takes me back. My Dad had a red one of these back in the 1980’s, he also had a labrador hence the choice of car. My Sister and I had flown the nest by then so a two door estate sort of made sense to him. I seem to remember it had quite a powerful engine (2.2 Ltr?) and the difference in build quality between the Rovers he had had before and this was amazing.