The Dreamy Dutch

In a small village, just west of Antwerp, the Netherlands, there is a small collection of beautifully restored and/or modified Honda's tucked away in a warm garage, all of which are owned by one young gentleman named Leon.  Leon happens to be one of the nicest guys I've had the pleasure to interact with in the Honda community.  He also has some serious talent when it comes to bringing old Honda's back to life and maintaining them.  His entry into the world of Honda's didn't happen as naturally as one would think, considering his young age and what he's already accomplished so far.  Even though his father and grandfather have been stanch proponents of Honda ownership for his entire life, he wasn't particularly biased towards Honda at the beginning.  It wasn't until he purchased his first Honda, a '92 Civic hatch, that a connection started to be made.  He only made a few modifications to the car, but he really enjoyed driving and modifying it.  Something started to click for him.  Before selling his hatch, due to rust, he had picked up a second generation CRX as a project car.  By the time he had completed the CRX, which turned into a complete restoration with modifications, he was a complete Honda nut.  Since then he has started, what can only be described as, a collection of gorgeous Honda's, which include a mint and tastefully modified yellow S2000, a Bayside Blue '93 Civic hatch with Spoon parts all over it, the second generation CRX that he restored, a modern EDM Civic hatch and his most recent build, a first generation CRX SI.

As with his introduction to Honda's, the decision to work on a first generation CRX didn't come as naturally as you'd expect.  Another CRX was not at all on his future project radar since he had, only a year or so earlier, completed a CRX.  That changed when he came across a comment left by a friend on a Facebook post about an 1985 CRX SI.  In the post, the owner had mentioned that he was considering selling the car.  With his desire for rare things (first generation CRX's are rare in Europe, especially in the Netherlands) perking his interest in the car, Leon decided to contact him to get some additional details.  Before he knew it, there was a black and gray, first generation CRX sitting in his driveway.  His initial plans for the car were to simply repair the rust on the rear wheel arches and call it a day, however, that isn't how this CRX story turned out.

When Leon restored his first CRX, he really enjoyed searching for NOS and rare aftermarket parts.  He invested a lot of time and money into making sure the build came out exactly as he wanted it to... perfect.  His efforts were rewarded.  He received rave reviews on the car and it even won an award at a car show.  Leon is by no means an attention seeking guy.  He made it clear that he builds his cars for himself, and not for other's to like them.

"I have never, and will never build a car for someone else to like, or be like, 'Wow, look at that!' "

However, it turns out that a lot of people like what he likes.  His success with the second generation CRX fueled his passion for not only owning Honda's, but building them as well.  So even though his initial plans for the little first gen started out as simple, the perfectionist in him soon took over and the build became a meticulous resto-mod.

When he received the car, it was in decent shape at a glance, but when the body panels came off, the picture wasn't as glamorous.  The floor pans had rusted through along the outside and forward edges of the front foot-wells.  The front bumper support, body seams along the rocker panels, sunroof and parts of the engine bay were rusted as well.  Additional damage came in the form of dents on the front and rear bumpers, a broken rear axle support member, and a cracked windshield.  That description would give you the impression that the car was a disaster, however compared to a lot of the cars I see in the US, it wasn't in bad shape at all.  However, in Leon's eyes, it was no where near where he would like the car to be.  The extent of the repairs were going to require a significant amount of skilled metal work and instead of sending the car straight to the body shop, he decided to do it all himself.  He acquired two NOS replacement rear quarter panels, some sheet metal and a tool to create and match the stamped features in the factory floor pans.  Cutting out and replacing rear quarter panels is not an easy thing to do for someone with very little experience, but he did a fantastic job.  He also made easy work of the floor pans and was able to match the stamped grooves in the factory pans exactly.

In his down time, when he wasn't making body work look way easier than it is, he was spending a lot of time tracking down NOS replacement parts and accessories, as well as rare aftermarket parts.  Leon contacted Honda dealers all across Europe to find what he needed.  Even though most of the dealerships never returned his calls, he was able to locate a large amount of hard to find parts including NOS tail lights, nose panel, quarter panels, mudguards, EDM side marker lenses, window seals and many other small bits like bolts, fasteners, seals and belts.  Not only was he able to track down all those NOS parts, but he was also able to track down additional rare items such as a JDM rear reflective panel, a set of mint Mugen MR-5 wheels, Honda fog lights, Koni shocks (which were later replaced with a Teins), a sunroof visor, and many other goodies.

After the body work was complete, the underside of the car was sprayed with a protective coating.  All the suspension and brake parts were then cleaned, painted and/or replaced.  Leon then moved on to the engine, which ran well enough to needed very little in the way of mechanical repairs, however aesthetically, it needed work.  After hours of scrubbing and cleaning, the engine, transmission, distributor, intake and other miscellaneous items were painted silver.  The valve cover was repainted in the factory black with the face of the embossed sections left exposed.  With the engine out of the car, Leon took the opportunity to clean the wiring harness and replace all the damaged sections of yellow tape that came from the factory.  Work then continued to the engine bay which required an intensive cleaning, a respray, and replacement of any damaged parts, most of which were replaced with NOS parts.

Once all the new or aftermarket body panels had been acquired, the car was ready to go to the shop for small repairs, prep, and paint.  Once the shell had been repaired, it and the loose body panels were painted.  When Leon brought the car back from the shop, all that needed to be done was to reassemble the car.   As the car was going back together, the few remaining details such as a last minute suspension change (from Koni to Tein) and recreating the damaged factory stickers (which was done by recreating the sticker content on the computer and then having them printed as stickers - done by Leon himself), were completed.

The final product of all his efforts is truly remarkable.  The car came out in better shape than it did when it rolled off the assembly line.  Why? Because not only was it meticulously restored, but it was modified to suit it's owner's driving preferences.  Dripping in NOS Honda parts, period correct factory options, and rare aftermarket parts, this car is one of a kind.  I had the pleasure of following along Leon's journey with the car on the Red Pepper Racing forum.  His work speaks for itself and I hope he keeps on building Honda's.  You can't have too many like this.  He mentioned the possibility of a third generation prelude build in his future, but since he's recently moved to a new place with a little less space than before, he might have to cut back.  Let's hope not!

Additional info on Leon and his cars can be found here: https://1gcrx.jimdo.com/

Photos by Leon Lambert and AllCars Photography

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The Family Racer

On more than one occasion I've been told by folks who race their first generation CRX's, that the number one reason why they chose to race the car, was reliability.  Racing, in any form, is not cheap, and for those of us who are just doing it for fun and are not independently wealthy, the need to save money, where possible, is imperative to maintain consistency of participation.  That is where the first generation CRX makes perfect sense.  It's very affordable to purchase, maintain and modify.  Honda engines are some of the most reliable on the road today and they hold up extremely well to the rigors of competition.

Just ask Stacy Chapman, the President of the New Brunswick Sporting Car Club who purchased his first generation CRX back in 1988 with that idea in mind.  He had been an auto enthusiast for as long as he could remember, and when it came time for him to take the next step and begin competing, he turned to Honda.  Since his racing career was in its infancy, the stock DX model that he found, with only 41,000 miles on the clock, was the perfect choice for him.  It was affordable, lightweight, reliable, and easy to prep for the newly formed Improved Touring class for which he built the car for.

"Get in it any time and it always starts and stays running."

He competed in Auto Slalom and wheel to wheel racing in the Improved Touring class through the early 90's and had numerous successes including many Club and Regional victories, FTDs (Fastest Time of the Day), and even a National Class Championship.  As the 90's came to a close, Stacy took a break from competition until about 5 years ago when he started racing his GT-1 prepped Porsche 914/6.  During his break from racing he had amassed a large collection of cars, most of them Porsche's, specifically from the 70's and 80's.  Since reentering competition, he was won the GT-1 class several times, and is currently prepping one of the Porsche's in his collection to compete in the vintage class.

With all that success and his own collection of rare Porsche's (among other performance cars), you might think that he must have moved on from the CRX.  But you'd be wrong in thinking that because he still owns the little CRX and while he himself focuses on his efforts to get into vintage racing, the other members of his family such as his son-in-law, his two daughters, and their boyfriends, race it on the weekends.  Stacy will still compete in it on occasion when the other cars in his 'fleet' aren't running properly.  It has become the family toy, and remains the go-to car in his collection.

 "It's always my go-to car when the others act up.  Turn the key and it starts every time and nothing ever breaks on it even when co-driven by three different (sometimes not so smooth drivers) people at Solo II events."

It really says a lot that Stacy, a racing veteran with his choice of automotive toy, still keeps his first generation CRX around for good, reliable and competitive fun.  The performance may not stack up against its fellow garage mates, but when duty calls, it's always there, ready to provide the smiles.

Photo's provided by Stacy Chapman

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A Trans-Canadian Adventure

Most of us, at one point in our lives, have taken risks and done crazy things in order to obtain the things we really want.  For example, less than a year ago, I flew to Kansas City, rented a truck and trailer and drove over a thousand miles back to my house with a newly purchased 3G Civic track car in tow; all within 26 hours (That story you've probably heard about.  If you haven't, you can read it here: Chasing Dreams).  If that sounds crazy, wait till you hear about Troy's big adventure.

Earlier this year, Troy, on a whim, purchased a 1986 Honda Civic 1500s, sight unseen, from a woman in Vancouver, British Columbia.  Yeah, sight-unseen purchases are risky for sure, but that's not what makes this story crazy.  The massive caveat to this purchase was the fact that Troy lived 6000km ( that's roughly 3700 miles for us Americans ) away in Nova Scotia.  His hastily prepared, last minute plan was to take a week off of work to fly out to Vancouver and drive the Civic back along the Trans-Canada Highway.  His trip would have him traverse almost the entire length of the highway.

The Trans-Canada Highway is the longest highway in the world stretching from Victoria, British Columbia to St. John's in Newfoundland and Labrador, 7821km in total ( 4860mi ).  It was opened in the summer of 1962 by the Prime Minister at the time, John Diefenbaker, even though there were still sections of the highway that had not been paved.  When the highway was officially finished in 1970, it had cost Canada 1 billion dollars to create, but what a road it was.  Crossing every province from the Canadian Rockies to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, it is quite a feat of engineering.  This engineering marvel, was Troy's path home.

Some might argue ( his friends and family included ), that a 1986 Honda Civic 1500s wasn't worth that kind of risk, but you have to get to know the man to really understand why this wasn't such a difficult decision.  Troy has a history with Honda's.  As a young teenager, he purchased his first Honda brand new, an 1988 CRX.  A car he very much enjoyed, but he admits, it could've gotten him into trouble.

"This car almost killed me a few times and I'm quite seriously thankful that I never hurt anyone, including myself".

Only four years later, he was already neck deep into his first serious Honda project.  He had purchased two 1978 Civics, one a manual and the other a Hondamatic, with the hopes of coming out on the other side with one really nice car.  After swapping drive trains and restoring the body himself, he not only ended up with a beautiful car, but more importantly, he had acquired a vast amount of automotive knowledge and a passion for Honda's (if he didn't have that already).

Fast forward 24 years, and it was time for him to find a car that could take him back to his youth where he fell in love with Honda's.  In his eyes, the little Civic that he found online was the perfect tool for this task.  He quickly made a deal with the owner of 25 years, and hopped on a plane headed for the other side of the continent.

When he arrived, the car was as described by the owner.  It only had 100,000 miles on the odometer, and was completely stock.  Overall the car was in good condition, thanks to the fact that it spent much of its life in an airplane hanger where the owner's late husband had kept his airplane.  The timing belt and tensioner had been replaced in recent years, however the owner suggested that the battery, on occasion, needed a 'boost'.  Troy would experience this first hand, shortly after departing.

After having breakfast with the owner, where she shared some of the history of the car, Troy hit the road and headed toward the Ferry station.  The brief 30 mile trip along the winding roads of Vancouver Island was all it took to have him smitten with the car.  The small yet roomy interior had him wondering why new cars have so much wasted space in them, filling the over sized interiors with enormous interior paneling.  The environment of simplicity was a breath of fresh air.

As the ferry pulled up to the mainland and he got in the Civic to leave, that's when all the songs from the 80's ringing in his head and the memories of his youth when he was wizzing around in his CRX were abruptly silenced as the turn of his ignition lead to even more silence.  The battery bug had bitten, and in his frustration and desperation to get the car going again, he flooded the carb.  What made the situation even worse still was the long line of roughly 100 cars behind him, all with irritated owners glaring at him.  With the situation looking dire he sprung into action and flagged down a couple boatmen and explained his predicament.  Thankfully they had equipment for such matters and they quickly brought a charger over to his car.  Sadly though, the first member of the crew to attempt the charge was either mechanically inept, or simply blind, because he proceeded to attach the charger leads to the wrong battery terminals.  Troy watched in horror as sparks and smoke billowed into the air as he turned the key.  With the thought that lightening rarely strikes the same place twice (pun intended), he instructed a different crew member to assist.  Unfortunately, this crew member was stricken with the same case of blindness and lack of wit, for he promptly repeated the same mistake the first crew member made.  More sparks and smoke ensued.  At the point of panic, Troy started checking the rest of the electrical system for additional damaged that could've been caused by the confused boatmen.  He popped the cover off of the fuse box that houses the three main fuses.  The bottom fuse had melted in half.  Thankfully he had brought a bag of tools with him which included a handy 12mm socket.  With all his fingers and toes crossed, he wedged the socket into the fuse box to bridge the fuse, attached the charger leads to the battery correctly, and turned the ignition.  Success!  The car fired right up, and he was out of there faster than you could say Saskatchewan.

The next stop on the journey was a parts store, and in true red-neck style, he changed his battery in the parts store parking lot.  In addition to the battery, Troy replaced the 12mm socket with a short length of wire to minimize the risk of losing power while on the road.  Even though these repairs would get him back on the road, he was concerned with the potential unseen damage that could've occurred to the electrical system during the ferry fiasco.  He finished up his repairs and hit the road with an sense of unease.

Every celebrated, ten mile segment of the journey with no issues turned into every fifty, and then into every one hundred miles.  Things were going well as the he wound his way through the Canadian Rockies.  At the five hour mark, while plodding through a Rocky Mountain rain storm, Troy noticed that the accelerator pedal was getting progressively harder to press down.  It wasn't long before it was almost impossible to press down, and when it was pressed down, it wouldn't come back up.  It was time to investigate the issue.  He pulled over and removed the throttle cable with the assumption that it was finally ceasing up from old age.  Since he had failed to include any sort of lubricant in his tool bag, he was limited to a simple massaging of the cable to get it moving again.  This repair helped enough to get back on the road, but it slowly returned to its unusable state only two hours later.  Troy ended up repeating this step over a dozen times until he reached a town in Saskatchewan that had a Honda dealer.  Unfortunately and understandably, they did not have a replacement cable in stock, but a surprising thing did happen while he was there.  While he and the parts manager were discussing replacement cables, the owner over heard their conversation and came to investigate.  It turned out that he was a big fan of old Honda's as well as wrenching on them.  He insisted on taking a look at the car.  He removed the seized cable completely and injected it with fresh lubricant.  It was exactly what it needed and the car was back full functioning order.  The kind dealer owner sent him on his way refusing any kind of payment for the repair.  However, just before he left, Troy slipped the receptionist a 50 as a gesture of thanks.

The encouragement and good vibes left over from the visit to the dealer were soon squashed when he noticed the tachometer needle starting to jump a little.  The jumping then turned into a dance, and then the engine started to follow suit, matching the dancing tach's tempo.  Thoughts of the disaster on the ferry came flooding in to his head as he pondered the worst possible scenarios.  He didn't have any tools to diagnose or repair the electrical system.  At this point, he could only hope that his current streak of good luck with simple repairs would continue... and it did.  As he poured over car's electrical system, he noticed that the distributor was very loose.  He gave it a closure look and discovered that there was only one bolt left holding the distributor in place, and it was about to make its exit.  He quickly replaced the missing 10mm bolt with one he borrowed from elsewhere in the engine bay, and went on his way.

The rest of his journey went very well and the car performed flawlessly.  As he passed through Ontario and into the Great Lakes region, his earlier struggles and anxiety about future issues started to fade away.  The area's with civilization were prevalent now and in some cases, very dense.  There would be no issues finding parts or even a Honda dealer if he were have a problem now.  With three provinces down and only Quebec standing between him and home, he was feeling confident.

As he left Quebec City behind him and crossed over into Nova Scotia, he was met by a group of friends and fellow Honda enthusiasts who traveled with him the rest of the way; a mobile Honda escort of sorts.  With familiar scenery in sight, being surrounded by friends, and filled with confidence, Troy decided that some exuberant driving was in order.  The group spent the last leg of the journey having as much fun on the road as they could.  After returning home and getting some much needed rest, he cleaned up his newly purchased Civic and proudly parked it in front of his lovely home for a personal photo shoot.  A well deserved treat.

It's difficult to grasp the vastness of a country this size and the extent of an undertaking such as this trip of Troy's.  Crossing two mountain ranges, a 1000 miles of bare plains in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and through the vast wilderness of Ontario, the Trans-Canada highway is not to be taken lightly.  Much of the journey is spent on roads that are hundreds of miles from anything, let alone an auto parts store.  To successfully complete a journey of this magnitude it would typically require lengthy planning and a very reliable vehicle.  For Troy to, on a whim, embark on this trip in a sight-unseen, 30 year old Honda, it would seem like pure bravery.  In many respects it is, however he understood from his past that if there was going to be a 30 year old car out there that could complete the journey, it would be a Honda.

"It goes without saying that 6600 kilometers of non-stop driving is a test for any car - my admiration for early Honda engineering is bolstered even more with what I just experienced in this 30 year old Civic."

Photos by Troy Wood

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