Out of all the cars that I’ve owned in the last four decades, not one of them has been a Honda. That’s crazy because almost every other make has been represented. Well, come to think of it, I have never owned a Rolls-Royce, Bentley, or Cadillac, or a Nash or a Hudson, or a Packard or a Porsche, or a… (this is getting downright depressing). But, we were talking about Hondas, weren’t we? This 1979 Honda Accord is located in beautiful Sylmar, California and it can be found on eBay with a current bid of just under $2,000 and the reserve isn’t met.
I normally like my vehicles on the oddball side, or at least unusual, like wagons or more normal cars with some unusual option. This two-door Accord with a 5-speed is nicely-equipped and is in great condition as you can see, and it does have an unusual and rare option that we’ll check out in a bit. The body on this Accord looks great, but you can see that the paint on the left quarter panel is dull for some reason, there’s not much shine to it compared to the driver’s door. Other than that, this car looks great. The seller says that it’s a “solid California car with no accident or rust” and that’s typically the top concern when buying an older vehicle. Clearly something odd is going on with the left side quarter panel, it’s a shade lighter, it must have been repainted at some point?
The right quarter panel has a nice shine to it. I’m not sure what’s going on with the left rear side, but at least it doesn’t appear to be rusty! A first-generation car for any manufacturer is often times the one that collectors want. Here’s a fun and interesting comparison between the first-year 1976 Accord and a 2016 Accord. I’m not quite sure what the cow-catcher is on top of the front bumper on this car, maybe there are a lot of deer in Sylmar, California? Crazy.
Normally I’m a keep-things-bone-stock sort of guy, but I really like this two-tone seat treatment that this interior has going on. They had the seats reupholstered and that’s not a bad look, in my opinion. The dash appears to be about as perfect as it could possibly be and it’s nice that they took the protective dash cover off to show us the pristine dash underneath it! Well done. This car also has the rare “sliding rugtop”, which I think the seller means sliding ragtop. You wouldn’t want to have your rugtop open and have the rug (toupee) get sucked off the top of your head while driving.
The engine could use some medium-duty detailing for sure, and can we please get a felony conviction for the guy who invented blue spark plug wires?! This is Honda’s EK-series 1.8L inline-four with 72 hp and 94 ft-lb of torque. Yeah, you aren’t going to be doing too many Jay-Leno-like burnouts in this car, but I know that with a 5-speed transmission you should be able to chirp the tires in at least 1st gear and most likely 2nd and possibly 3rd, if you’re going around a corner. Parts of this car, like the underside of the hood, look like they’ve been repainted, or at least touched-up a bit, but I could be wrong. This car has a new clutch, and also “tires, shocks, brakes, brake cylinders, master cylinder and booster, full tune up, performance exhaust along with new weber carburetor”, so there ya go. About a month ago, Jeff showed us a 1983 Accord that was a jewel box, but if a person likes the older, first-generation design, this 1979 Accord may be one to check out.
This puppy will go for silly money. This is the model that made Honda’s bones in the USA. At 2000 lbs and 94″ wheelbase, mechanically indistructable, although the interiors dissolved within months typically.
I forgot about those “backward” alternators…
that “cow catcher” on the front bumper is a grill guard. when the Japanese cars had skinny little bumpers that bent when you looked at them cross eyed, the dealers installed these to save the grill and the hood. not that they were much better that the bumper. you see them on 240z quite a bit. another way to add dealer markup.
You’ve got it in one there tigerll. We saw a lot of these fitted to Japanese cars here in Australia during the 1970’s. Early plastic grills were quite brittle and shattered easily from a bird strike. Replacement oem grills for most of these cars were hideously expensive, so these bars did offer some protection in that area.
I always thought these were first used to keep your car from getting damaged when parallel parking or when someone was parallel parking in front of your car.
Had the identical car but gold sunroof leaked like a sieve but other than that it was a great car!
IMO Honda makes the best internal combustion motor in the world
The blue wires are by NGK and that’s the best of the best.
Most importantly is that it has an updated carb.
Great basic transportation.
I had a silver one of these when I was about 21 it was my first Honda. It went well and I used it to move house. I swapped it for an Audi 1.9gt coupe. Boy I swapped with ran it for a few years then it disappeared. I think the dreaded tin worm got the better of it.
Tin worm indeed. Bought one (probably this same model year) a while back when a basic beater was needed, other car was totaled .. hit a bump and the driver’s side shock tower popped the hood open, when it broke the rust loose (didn’t see it from the top). That was it…
Mine was a 1984 Accord and the only car I ever bought new. Extremely reliable and was never back for any recall work. Miss that car for sure.
Always liked these original Accords. Solid and simple not like the more complex Accords of this century.
only CC spinning car motor on earth?
OK, I’m a bit confused. Are we looking at an Accord, or a Civic ? On the back of the car, there CVCC ornaments.
I think the CVCC system was used on all of Honda’s engines of the period, Brad
Ended: Dec 01, 2017 , 9:30PM
Current bid:US $5,302.00
Reserve not met
[ 55 bids ]
The CVCC engine was, in fact, used in all first gen Accords, although it was about 200 cc larger than the Civic mill. The “updated carb” is not as desirable as a good working CVCC carb, as it means no more CVCC and kills the originality of the engine bay. But those Webers are far easier to tune and provide a small performance boost.
My 79 still runs great on its original Kehin CVCC carburetor. But it only has 57,000 miles on it. Surprised this one got as high as it did and more surprised it did not meet reserve.