Last year, I found a 2009 Chevrolet Chevy (a Mexican-market Opel Corsa) in a Denver car graveyard, presumably driven here on Mexican plates and then abandoned and towed away when it couldn’t be registered in Colorado.
We can assume that today’s Junkyard Find came to the Mile High City in the same way, but via the northern border rather than the southern one.
The Acura EL was a luxed-up Civic, based on the Japanese-market Honda Domani sedan. The EL sold well in Canadaland, and I’m sure plenty of them commute daily into Detroit or Buffalo. This is the first one I’ve ever seen in Colorado, though.
Those of us accustomed to seeing Freedom Distance Units in big type and Communist Enslavement Distance Units in small type on our speedometers might be startled by this gauge showing KiloLenins first. Actually, I’m surprised some local seventh-gen Civic owner hadn’t grabbed this instrument cluster, because km/h is more JDM, yo.
Metric temperature settings, even! What’s the point of the metric system, anyway?
Despite some timeworn seat upholstery, this car was in decent shape when it got to its final parking space. The original French-language manuals were still in the glovebox, suggesting that it may have been a one-owner machine.
The rear bodywork, being Domani-based, doesn’t look like a US-market Civic sedan from the era, but otherwise we’re looking at a nicely-optioned Civic sedan that almost blends in here.
Attain the balance between luxury and excitement.
Just the car for the salt flats.
If you like these junkyard posts, you’ll find links to 1700+ more at the Junkyard Home of the Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand™.
Obligatory: The metric system is the tool of the devil!!! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that’s the way I likes it!!!
Those era EL’s were badge jobs, the 90’s ones were nice though. Basically a better looking civic with leather, sunroof, better audio, rims etc.
Bad news: “Since the International Yard and Pound Agreement of 1959, one foot is defined as 0.3048 meter exactly.”
We *are* on the metric system! … head explodes …
Bonus factoid: The prototype meter bar of platinum-iridium is old news (as of 1960). As of 1983, a meter is “the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second.” So what’s a second? “Since 1967, the second has been defined as exactly ‘the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom’ (at a temperature of 0 K).” Thank you wikipedia.
This is all going to be difficult to prove out at home.
[By the way, if you’ve never contributed to the Wikimedia Foundation, you might be a selfish narcissist. :-) ]
28 Cars with the first post FTW!
I wonder if the car had any Royale with Cheese wrappers under the seats.
(“Aw man, I shot Marvin in the face!”)
2 questions: Where was this thing built? Japan? Anna, OH? Canada? Why did someone write “3.5 L”? Its obviously a 4 banger? Head scratcher?
Anyone who goes by the numbers on climate control is crazy. If you’re cold, turn it up; if you’re hot, turn it down. The number is less than meaningless.
Generally agree except on my 2004 Caddy. Set at 73 and never touch it year around. A great HVAC system reminiscent of the ones from GM’s glory days.
I have to agree. My 2005 Grand Prix with dual zone climate control was identical. Set and forget, it just held a steady perfect temperature. Don’t know what programming and sensors GM was using in the 00s but it just feckin’ worked. Never had a vehicle as good before or after (GM included)
Weirdly, I set mine to 72 in the warmer months and 68 I’m the cooler months. If I don’t the thing is a refrigerator, which I generally like but I don’t want to fiddle with the fan constantly.
Kind of, but mostly yes. There are a few variables that make it pretty tough to actually build a truly “set and forget” system. The sunlight sensor on the dashboard helps a lot, but- Some people have tinted side windows or darkly tinted side windows, other locales don’t allow any front seat side window tinting, the local humidity might go through wide swings… and so on.
I don’t have to change the set point by more than two or three degrees (F) in my ’15 Honda; they did a pretty nice job on that one.
I pretty much sat and forgot it on our 2003 Mountaineer 16 years ago and haven’t looked back.
Depends on the car – my BMW is set to 70F year-round, I never touch it. And it is 70F in the car. My Fiata – I just use it like a manual system, because auto-mode is useless.
An Acura that looks like a Honda Civic? Pathetic. I think this is the start of Acura’s decline – selling poorly-disguised Civics.
The green spray paint on the engine – is that a warning that the engine isn’t EPA certified, and not to be swapped into a Civic?
Interesting question…
Well, the Integra *was* a Civic with different styling and a bigger engine, but at least it wasn’t badge-engineered.
Not badge-engineered, but the ’94 GSR I owned felt very Civic-like from a trim standpoint.Only when the RSX and TSX debuted did they seem premium enough to be called true Acura’s. And yes, the ILX seems like they reverted to the ‘let’s sneak this Civic by the public and see if they notice”school of thought.
My brother’s ‘Teg GS-R always felt like it had the equivalent quality of the current Accord.
Interesting observation.
Funny how you mentioned TSX and RSX, they ARE badged engineered too, called Honda Accord and a Honda Integra overseas. Just because you don’t see its original model sold here doesn’t make it more premium…..
The Acura ILX is a 2013 Civic…still yet.
Badge engineering at it’s finest!
Now you’ve done it Norm, prepare for the slings and arrows of the Honda faithful demanding that no it is like, almost, totally different, sort of, if you squint hard…
Its a warning that a dead engine is the reason the car is in the yard, or that the car is marked for the crusher soon, depending on the yard.
Acura ONLY existed in the US for most of the brand’s existence. They were simply Hondas in the rest of the world. So if anything, the Acura is the “badge engineered” version.
I’m surprised that someone hasn’t grabbed the trunk with the different tail lights for their Civic yet.
I find the mileage to be one of the more interesting data points in these Junkyard posts. How hard would it be to carry a battery pack and power up the car long enough to see the mileage?
If you don’t have the car’s keys, good luck with that…
“Freedom Distance Units in big type and Communist Enslavement Distance Units in small type.” What a hoot! You are a funny writer Murilee!
Acur-ivic!
Everything about the metric system is better than the English units except for temperature. A difference of 2 degrees C is pretty significant. I wish our country had changed over when Canada did. Ironic that all American cars are all built with metric sized fasteners…though the transition was odd. My MK VII was metric except for the carryover items such as the engine.
It’s a bit of a misnomer to call them “English” units. It is the units used in England when the USA declared independence, but around 1820 the UK did a massive overhaul and rationalization of their system of measurement and came up with the Imperial system. Thus weight and volume measurements are all different between the current US and old UK systems.
A US gallon is actually the Queen Anne wine gallon of 1707, and at the time gallons were different sizes for wine, beer, ale and honey. The US has continued to use these 18th century units and never updated them. Thus you see difference between US and UK ounces, pints, quarts gallons, and in weight ounces and tons.
The system of units used in the USA today has not been used in England for close to 200 years
Thank you – that is the best explanation of that I’ve ever read.
Very interesting Jagboi, thank you
My mother’s 1978 Plymouth Horizon was part metric (its VW-sourced engine) and part SAE (pretty much everything else). Lots of fun trying to work on that POS.
Practically every car in use today; from Tesla to Formula 1 and Formula E, still uses both Metric and SAE measurements. Just look at the tire size.
Dear Old Dad was finally forced to buy metric tools after he bought that 1982 Chevrolet Celebrity. His ride previous to that one was a 1978 Monte Carlo.
Good point. Those Michelin TRX metrics never really caught on, even though they were offered on certain Fox-body Mustangs for a while.
My ’86 Monte Carlo SS was half metric and half-SAE. So when working on the engine, break out the SAE wrenches. When working on the interior, you better have a metric set if you wanted to remove the seats. Maddening it was.
Yup. See my reply to Golden2Husky.
Yup. See my reply to Golden2Husky.
Had to be some TorX stuff in there, as well!
These have been so prevalent in my life I never knew they weren’t sold in US. This, along with it’s 90’s EL predecessor (which looked WAY better than the Civic it was based on and didn’t look like a badge engineering job) and it’s CSX successor were massive sellers and there are still a lot on the road. Were all 3 of them Canadian exclusive?
Yep. We didn’t have a Civic-based Acura between the Integra and the ILX.
Our Acura dealers wouldn’t have survived without the EL/CSX. I suppose they can feast on the higher margins of the RDX/MDX now, but when it was only TL/RL and no Integra sedan, they needed to skim the top trim of the Civic to make up the customer volume in Canadian Acura showrooms.
The only person I knew who owned an EL was a woman who was both a neighbor of mine and a manager at Calgary’s most famous strip club: The French Maid. You may draw your own conclusions – but her house parties were awesome.
My wife is now with me in the U.S. and she brought her fathers 2004 Acura EL with her. Currently 268k kilometers and runs great!
My 77 Monte Carlo had both metric and SAE. I had to buy metric tools as well back in the early 80’s to work on it.
“Freedom Distance Units”
There is nothing father from truth. It is British colonial units symbolizing suppression of freedom of religion and taxation without representation. Tyranny in other words by English King.
If you want Freedom, Equality, Fraternity and Republic Units you should insist on switching to French revolution inspired and mathematically superior French metric system, considering that French Republic was US ally during anti colonial war for independence in NA. You should leave rotten English system to Canadian who stayed loyal to tyrant King and oppressors in red coats.
Either this is some expert level double-reverse trolling… or the joke went over your head.
I’ll go with the former case. Well done!!
Whoever wrote “3.5L” on that engine — pretty sure it’s not :)
That’s how much oil to put in it.