You may think this Honda Civic hatchback isn’t worthy of a closer look, but there’s good reason that bidders have pushed the auction action to over $7,000 at the moment. Simply put, these cars faced a variety of circumstances that have made them all but impossible to find today in anything approaching clean, stock condition, and this base model hatchback listed here on eBay is one of the few that have come up for sale with no rust and no modifications.
The EG-chassis Civic is a favorite among hot-rodders, owing to its low curb weight and ability to accommodate a wide variety of high-horsepower engine swaps. Those conversions could simply be more powerful engines from the Honda/Acura family tree or heavily modified mills with turbochargers cranking out some serious boost. But what makes these cars great fun as build candidates is also what makes survivors like these so sought-after.
This was also a wonderful era of Honda engineering. Simple lines, clutter-free cockpits, and pencil-thin pillars that gave you incredible visibility from an otherwise compact cockpit. These days, a base model Civic is still a very heavy car, laden with all sorts of safety and technological features that may seem like progress but absolutely rob newcomers to the Honda brand of what it meant to build a cheap hatchback that was surprisingly driver-focused. Even those stock bucket seats offered a surprising amount of cornering support should your commute have a few curves in it.
The Civic has been registered in Maryland since new and has just over 108,000 original miles. The engine bay is quite clean and the same goes for the body – the seller includes numerous underbody photos that reveal rust-free rockers and a shockingly clean undercarriage for a car that has seen some actual use. The appeal here is this is a car that will always be appreciated and can still be used as an in-town runabout without hesitation. I’m not surprised to see the active bidding on one as clean as this.
While I sang the praises of the original Civic, this is where they lost me. I bought a ’95 Civic EX, 2 door from my landlords SIL several years ago( 1st mistake). Got it cheap, like $2500, 200K, but alleged 100K on new motor( 2nd mistake), when I looked it over, it was low on coolant, thinking, I’ll merely “top it off”( 3rd mistake). Initially, I really liked the car, sporty, super mileage, then the coolant thing reared it’s ugly head. “Mend-Tite”, that I swear by btw, slowed it some, to the point, I thought, rather than fly/rent, I’ll just take the Honda to Colorado( 4th mistake). Halfway through Nebraska, it ran out of coolant, and was white knuckles the rest of the way. I made it back to Wis. with more sealer, but junked the car upon return. It handled poorly, especially on snow, uncomfortable, awkward controls that broke( gas cap door, radio, etc) impossible to work on, someone told me, rather than take the motor apart, it’s best to just put in a replacement, and I believe it,,I HATED THAT CAR and soured me on buying anything Asian ever again, right dad?
The old man looking down from wherever, nodding in approval,,”that’s my boy”, and about the only thing we DID agree on.
Perhaps it wasn’t properly serviced. Years back our son bought an Accord with 197K. Figured the Honda had a little life in it for a college kid. big mistake. The Hondas we have bought new or with low miles and properly serviced them have been miracles of longevity. I guess even Hondas can fail if ignored.
Hi Grant, on a hiatus( again) of sorts, no new comments for a while,(yay) but will follow up since you took the time. Maintenance is the key, as you say, and no question they can rack up the miles. Scotty G put an amazing 360K on an Outback, that still ran well. If you notice my “1st mistake”, buying it from a doofus, but I was desperate, and thought, it’s a Honda, how bad could it be? I thought it was ironic, in a non-maintenance situation, BOTH motors failed at the 100K mark, and forums showed, it was not unusual for head gaskets to fail at that time. Engineered for that? Maybe, and one can cheat that some by strict maintenance, but to the masses, who are unaware of how important that is, will just buy another Honda, and Honda knows that. Make the repairs so outrageous( ever price a Honda transmission lately?), or impossible to do, as in engine rebuild, it makes no sense to fix the old car. Car companies have to sell new cars, and no money in old ones and people have no choice. Get this, my daughter in Cal. has a 2016 BMW, that her music app. won’t work, so she went to the dealer to find out why. They told her, that app. won’t work on a 2016, but will on a new BMW,,,shall I get the salesperson? She was appalled and my SIL got some bootleg device, and installed it, but that’s the mindset today.
Honda, like all Asian cars, are simply the best, only an idiot would argue agin that, but I’ve long felt, ALL car companies today, engineer failure at a certain point, to insure their existence. How do we know, a “program” isn’t engineered into the “computer” to make it run poorly at 125K? They’ve had the vehicle long enough. One might think I’m overly skeptical, but it’s how I see it today.
I have a 1994 civic hatchback cx with 201k on the odometer. It’s got the d15b8 8valve motor with a 5spd. It’s runs perfectly and I get 34 mpg. It’s my daily driver for work. I drive about 70 miles back and forth to work Per day. Easy to work on and I love it. It’s all stock and people ask me all the time if I’ll sell it. You can guess what the answer is.
Ahhh, this is that unmodified Honda I’ve been hearing all the buzz about.
People just want to go back to a time when they were young and full of spunk!
All these comments about beat up worn out Hondas. Even I ended up getting one a beat up honda prelude that my father thought was a good buy but it had a leaky sunroof busted fog light cracked moonroof glass and a big dent in the back corner but it ran. Meanwhile he found better cars for his lady friend such as a nice base civic just like this but black. Then a white acura integra. I am not bitter nope!
A White Honda – does it get more exciting than that?
You see boring. I see a cloak of invisibility.
As long as the oil has been changed regularly, because these little sewing-machine engines have really tiny oil passages, you could buzz the highways with this at 80-85 all day long. It won’t be quiet, because the engine will be spinning above 4000 rpm in overdrive. But you can always turn up the stereo …
And it’ll run that way all day long. Plus it’ll be totally invisible while it does it. The cops will ignore it, the insurance companies will dismiss it and at 25-30 mpg at genuinely illicit velocities, this cheap pocket rocket will offer you more useful speed on a daily basis than any Corvette or 911. That’s this li’l Honda’s secret superpower.
As the owner of one of the last 6-speed manual Honda Fits in a color I call “Settle-For-Silver”, I endorse this statement.
I believe this 3 door hatchback is a somewhat rare and desired configuration of this generation Civic.
Funny back when these things were new you could steal them with a screwdriver or USB cable and you didn’t have all these state governments wanting to sue Honda. Fast forward and Kia / Hyundai have the exact same ignition and the government is having a kitten over how easy they are to steal. Nice car though if you can keep it from being stolen it will last you a couple hundred thousand more miles
The immobilizer-chip-in-key technology that virtually every car built in the past decade by anyone except Hyundai/Kia was only just being introduced in high-end models like Mercedes and Corvettes when this car was new.
These & other Honda models or Toyota etc in that era if maintained correctly & NOT abused especially in west coast without rust can go 400,000 + miles easily.
a 94 w/ 200k miles on non orig engine makes me believe was driven hard / not taken care of by previous young owners.
I still have my 1996 Honda CVR (green 3 door hatchback) which I purchased new with 8 miles on odometer. I still drive it today with over 220K miles, still get 40 mpg, and was the only car my Dane would ride in, she didn’t like the newer cars (I guess the back seats weren’t wide enough for her). We’ve owned Honda cars (including two Acura TL) over 42 years (all were purchased new) and never had a problem with any of them. You take care of them, and they take care of you.
I had two civics, a 98 EX with a five speed and a 05 with automatic. I put some miles on the first one and the clutch was still good when I sold it after I slid along a guard rail and left a long crease in the side, still drive able. The 05 was bought used but had relatively low miles. I took care of it I thought but blew a head gasket when I ran it low on coolant. Fixed it kept it until I put 160k miles on it and then the tranny started slipping and it used oil. So unless you drive like an old lady I think civics will wear out like any other car. And I got real tired of those seats after awhile, limited adjustments and not good for long trips. But I’m five eleven so…
Does it have A/C? I see buttons for fresh air and recirculation but ??? And the dealer doesn’t say that it does in the advertisement.
No. If it had it, you’d see the A/C button where the block-off plate is on the right side of the HVAC panel. You also do not see any compressor under the hood.
My memory is a little fuzzy on this but I do not believe that Honda did factory installed options during this time period. Each trim level had its own set features so you got your desired option content by moving up trim levels. Any options the buyer wanted that were not standard had to be added by the dealer, like A/C.
I’m not sure which Civic trim levels in ’94 came with A/C as standard. I know my 1998 Civic EX did. This poverty spec DX certainly would not have had it.
I had a 94 EX 4 dr. sedan that unfortunately the tin worms killed (almost 20 years later) despite rust preventative. The motor and trans could have the snot wrung out of them all day long and the car would respond “That all you got?”. Just had to change the oil with the good stuff, change the belts as recommended, evict the mice that loved to nest in the engine compartment every winter and you were good to go. But, as Neil Young said…..Rust never sleeps. Radiators were an issue too. But easy to change.
Yes Howard it’s probably developed and installed by the extraterrestrials that invaded the planet and assimilated themselves into the automotive industry 😂