The Web Gal: Car Buff Stuff!

I've always thought the perfect car was a cute little wagon, like this '73 Volvo 1800-ES.
I never owned one, but I always thought they were the slinkiest little car around.
Perhaps some day I'll find a clean one and buy it - but the dream may be enough!

The vision is to have the lines (and the handling and performance!) of a slinky coupe, yet be practical and have room to occasionally haul things in the back like a station wagon. It should be a 3 door, not a 5 door (like Mazda's MS-3 nee Protege 5)

Volvo P 1800 ES

Probably the closest I came to a perfect sportwagon was the 1990 Honda Civic SI. It had a fold down back seat and was the perfect little sporty hatchback (3 door, not 5 door). Tho not quite a wagon, it was close ... It came with a 1.6 liter 16 valve engine that produced 108 horsepower. Honda claimed 28 city/32 highway MPG - but I usually got around 33 mpg after it was broken in. Its running fine today, tho its now Emma's car.
I found the CR-X alloy wheels on ebay a few years ago.

My 1990 Honda Civic SI Hatchback

Back in May 2000, I was ready for a newer car. I'd had such great luck (and fun) with the 1990 Civic SI, but it had over 140,000 miles on it, and I needed something newer for my daily commute (30+ miles). My partner Emma was in Clergy training, and although she only drove 1 mile to work, she occasionally needed to preach out of town and would sometimes have a pretty fair drive home after dark. We planned to keep the 90 Civic for her daily commute and I'd swap cars with her when she had to travel.

I still wanted a sportwagon, but when I looked for a new Civic SI, I found Honda had "moved" the SI package from the hatchback (wagon) bodystyle that I prefer to the coupe body. But we needed a car pretty quickly, and Hondas are reliable, so I got the coupe! And even tho it had a "hotrod" SI engine (160 horsepower - ZOOM!), I was getting 29 mpg nearly every tank.

Of course, in August 2000 we bought a house and I soon found that little trunk in the 2000 SI just did't cut it. Even tho the back seat folds down, it just isn't very roomy for hauling bags of mulch and all the other stuff the homeowner and earnest gardener needs to carry. But I made the best of it and made the payments.

My 2000 Honda Civic SI VTEC Coupe

But now, October 2005, our poor old '90 Civic is getting pretty long in the tooth. It still runs well, but with 150k miles, I'm not comfortable with Emma using it for longer distance trips. Emma is now an ordained reverend and is looking to start up a church, and she may be driving a lot more during the startup period, so she needs a newer, more reliable car. The "Blue SI" has nearly 75,000 miles, which isn't much, it runs well, and she likes it.

So it makes sense that I get a newer car, give her the "Blue SI" for fulltime use, and we retire the older '90 SI. I know Honda came out with a Hatchback SI in 2002, but it uses a larger 2 liter engine, is heavier, and doesn't rev like the "blue SI". My friend Millie bought one and she wound up having a turbo installed to make it peppy enough for her.

There are still some 2005 SIs on dealer lots, but I've decided against buying one.

I've driven Honda Civics for over 16 years now (the 2000 and the 1990 before it) because I believe we need to encourage the use of low-emission vehicles with high gas mileage. I believe the only way to make a difference is to take responsibility for your own wastes in the world. That said, since we bought a house I've been looking at some of the small wagon vehicles.

One possibility is the Scion xB ... I actually drove one but it just doesn't have enough "scoot" for me.

After our SI was stolen from work a couple years back I had to get a replacement vehicle pronto!! I test drove a used Honda CR-V!
I didn't really want a Sport Ute - its not a small sporty stationwagon!
In Europe and Japan, there is a market for sport-wagons - and I like them too!
But in the US, they don't import the Accord Wagons, there is no Civic Wagon, and the CR-V was my only choice for a small Honda!

1983 VW Rabbit GTI 16v

Of course, I did own other sporty cars before the SI ... I had an 84 VW Rabbit GTI before the Hondas ... I bought it used at 36k. It was a very hard-charging, nice little car, with a ton of space in the back once you folded down the back seat (wand what a clever mechanism!) It did seem to eat half-shafts with some regularity, and chewed through some tires, but I put 60k miles on it before I sold it at just over 100,000 miles ...

1975 Alfa Romeo GTV 2 liter 5 sp

Before the GTI, before the Hondas, there was an Alfa Romeo GTV - a 2 liter DOHC 5-speed fuel injected Gran Tourismo Veloce (Veloce means Fast). This is a picture of it parked on a scenic overlook at Skyline Drive. Pity I didn't take many pictures of the Alfas - yes, Alfas. ... I actually had another alfa before I bought this one.

Alfa Romeo Giulia 1.6 liter

This was a 1963 Alfa Romeo Giulia Spider (remember, spider means convertible - the use of Spyder spelled with a Y is an Detroit perversion). My first Alfa was a project car - I got a clean body from Russ up in Baltimore, there had been a fire under the hood, so the drivetrain was pulled and the wiring was cooked. I looked around and found a '67 Duetto drivetrain from someone in Arlington, and I dropped it in! This was a 1600cc DOHC with twin weber carbs and a 5 speed - a nice plus as the original motor wasn't quite as peppy and it wasn't originally a 5 speed. But I was very busy with a Pay-TV startup, and just didn't have the time to really follow the project along ... and as couldn't afford multiple cars, I sold it to a friend in Annapolis. Ah ... youth!

There were other cars before that - an MG-B GT and a host of lesser, boring vehicles ...
And as to what I did that lead me to enjoy sport cars ...
this is what I used to "drive" if you are really interested ...

My 1973 Triumph TR7-RV 750 cc twin in a '67 650 frame.

Visit my Triumph pages for more info

One final note ... if you were wondering ...

"What the heck is a VTEC?"

The Honda VTEC engine is all about Valve technology - the idea is to combine the advantages of a mild camshaft at lower RPM and a "wild" (radical) cam at higher RPMs ... the VTEC kicks in around 4500 RPM -7000 RPM. The effect is similar to the old GM muscle cars with Quadrajet carbs; if you keep your foot out of it, the car returns good gas mileage (GREAT mileage in the Civic), but can still scream when you do mash the pedal down.