Some of the CCs I’ve shot I still see regularly; many others have disappeared, to an unknown (and feared) fate. I hadn’t seen this blue gen1 Accord hatchback since I shot close to four years ago, and at the time it was in remarkably good condition for so old a car. Then a lttle while back, I ran into it over in Springfield, but looking decidedly worse for wear. It obviously has been in an accident, and I’m almost surprised someone bothered to put a new front clip on it. Presumably it’s still running well enough to warrant it. The grille is from a later year so, I’m not sure what vintage to assign to it, but it is a living relic.
If you haven’t seen it, check out its first appearance in a full CC: “Modern Architecture”.
CC Effect: I saw a grey/silver example on September 28 at a national veterans cemetery for a headstone cleaning. It was rusty, and had the CVCC motor (or at least the emblems), and was probably a 1976 like the one above. Sadly, my significant mother wouldn’t let me tag it for CC.
This is either a ’76, or ’77, I believe the 1978, and ’79 models had slightly redesigned lenses, though in the same horizontal configuration as this one.
Sometime in the 80’s, I think, Dad looked at a red ’78 Accord hatch (red with black interior), but decided against it for some reason. At the time, I think I recall there being ribs on the lenses, otherwise, it looked just like the first 2 years of this model.
About 2 years ago, maybe 3 years ago, found an ’80, or ’81 blue on blue Accord at Costco that was in very nice, almost new shape. Didn’t get a chance to see which year it was, as they redesigned the taillights around 1980 to the stacked units that remained in affect in various iterations up through at least 1993.
Nice to see one of these still being driven as a daily driver. It even has the same bumper as far as I can tell as the left rubber piece is still missing as evidenced by your original photos of it in ’11. I remember that article too.
Here is the car in question, shot with my cell phone.
Ciddyguy is correct– the wheels shown were gone after ’77
And I think there were 3 grilles– 80+ has the two horizontal lines and smooth multi-relector taillamps. The 78-79 had a honda badge in the center of the grille, and fluted taillamps. The 77 and earlier had an egg-grate grille, and taillamps with amber on the sides, and red in center.
The wheels on the subject car were from 76-77, the smaller pic (all blue) shows the 80+ wheels. The 78-79 had a four-slot design.
It could have been rust. My parents’ 77 (bought new) was showing a lot of tinworm by the time it was sold in 87. I still have fond memories of learning to drive stick in that car.
well according to paul, rust is very slow in oregon. these things were everywhere when i was a teenager in new jersey. they were just great but as you pointed out they all rusted away to nothing. if the japanese cars of the seventies had been built out of decent steel they would have lasted forever.
Coastal areas can be rust-prone from ocean spray but yeah, a big part of Oregon being a CC haven is the lack of rust out here. Moss, on the other hand…
If you look at the original article you’ll see that there wasn’t one bit of rust visible on the front end sheet metal back then so I wouldn’t expect it to have went from zero rust to in need of replacement in only 2 years.