I grew up in Tillamook, Oregon — rain, cheese, and the faint smell of cows in the air most mornings. The summer before my freshman year of high school, my mom, my brother, and I moved over the mountains to Sisters.
I wasn’t thrilled about it.
My dad and two sisters stayed behind in Tillamook, and suddenly my life ran on an every-other-weekend rotation back to the coast. A lot of miles. A lot of mountain passes. A lot of time staring out a windshield thinking about two different versions of home.
What didn’t change was that I was hopelessly car-obsessed and computer-obsessed. And I would soon find my first taste of freedom, in the form of a 1986 Honda Accord. I called it the Tan Sedan, and this is its story.
In 2003, my pride and joy wasn’t a vehicle. It was a refurbished 2001 iBook I’d worked an entire summer for, busing tables at the Tillamook Cheese Factory. I had agonized over whether to go with the clamshell Key Lime iBook or the white dual-USB model. The white one won out. That glowing Apple logo felt like success. But as much as I loved computers, cars were the thing that made me feel alive.
I had been “driving” as long as I could remember. There was a Power Wheels Jeep in our driveway. At my grandparents’ house, there were go-karts, four-wheelers, and lawn mowers. I was driving a riding mower around by myself at four years old. They had to bolt a giant block onto the brake pedal so I could reach it. By six, I could drive my grandpa’s stick-shift 1988 Chevy S10 around in the field. (That truck will come back later. It always does.)
Technically, the first set of keys handed to me the day after my birthday belonged to that very S10. Single cab. Short bed. Vinyl seats. Manual steering. AM radio. I was thrilled. Any car was good enough for me.
The next day, at my birthday party, my dad surprised me with something “better”: a 1986 Honda Accord LX. Beige. Front-wheel drive. Power steering. Power locks and windows. Pop-up headlights. Stick shift. Heat that worked. A/C that did not. I remember my dad had even outfitted it with a CD player.
It had about 260,000 miles on it.
He’d bought it from my cousin’s wife for $400 when she upgraded to a Cadillac Escalade. In our family, that wasn’t a red flag — it was a bargain. The Tan Sedan was simply the latest in a long line of Accords. My dad was driving a 1998 Accord at the time. One sister had a ’94. The other had a ’95. Before that, my dad had owned both an ’86 and an ’80. We were, apparently, an Accord family. Because of that, my ’86 felt instantly familiar and comfortable.
It wasn’t fast. It wasn’t cool. But it was freedom.
Not long after I got wheels, I landed a job as a courtesy clerk at Ray’s Food Place in Sisters. Bagging groceries (“paper or plastic?”), pushing carts in the snow, cleaning up spills — glamorous work. But suddenly I wasn’t waiting on rides. I could drive myself to work. Drive myself home. Drive wherever I wanted in between (not that there were a ton of places to go in Sisters). The Tan Sedan turned a part-time job into independence.
About a month or two into ownership, I had my first accident.
Nothing dramatic. Just classic sixteen-year-old confidence. I was pulling out of a parking aisle at school, feeling entirely competent and invincible, and didn’t look left. I clipped a classmate’s Pontiac Grand Am. I dented his door and cracked my own turn signal. I was mortified. I apologized profusely. He was far kinder about it than I deserved to be and chose to let it go.
Lesson learned: confidence and awareness are not the same thing.
The Accord took me everywhere — to school, to youth group, to late-night drives between Sisters and Bend, to Sunriver retreats with friends. It also taught me a few more hard lessons.
One: When you’re sliding on ice, pulling the emergency brake does not, in fact, make you stop faster.
Two: Plastic Walmart wheel covers do not survive Central Oregon winters. I went through several sets.
Three: In the summer, a fuzzy steering wheel cover is not optional when your factory wheel absorbs heat like a cast-iron skillet. A/C is also far more important in Central Oregon than on the Oregon Coast.
The Accord was mostly reliable in that old-Honda way. One winter, a belt snapped in my driveway. My grandpa came over and replaced it right there in the cold. That memory sticks with me more than the breakdown itself — just the two of us leaning over the engine bay while I tried not to freeze.
The strangest episode happened on a dark drive from Sisters to a youth group retreat in Sunriver. The engine suddenly refused to rev past 3,000 RPM. Foot to the floor, nothing. I pulled over. Shut it off. Restarted. Same problem. I called my dad on my Nokia 3310 for advice. He suggested I just keep driving since I was closer to my destination than to home. I limped the rest of the drive at about 40 mph, convinced something catastrophic had happened.
Two days later, I started heading home. It ran perfectly. The issue never returned.
That was The Tan Sedan — occasionally mysterious, generally loyal, and entirely mine.
Other than the belt and the mysterious 3,000-RPM episode, it was rock solid. But after about a year of ownership, and with some money in my pocket, I was ready for an upgrade.
It was time to buy the car I had been dreaming about since the mid-’90s.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1986-1989 Honda Accord – Ignoring The Future In Favor Of The Present
Great first car, loyalty is important… Whats next on the agenda..?
Tune in next week to find out! Let’s just say the next vehicle has a connection that’s… super.
A great start to a series I’ll be looking forward to. In 1981 I really wanted to buy a brand new ‘82 Accord hatchback but pricing and the attitude of my local dealer with junky add-ons to justify markups, steered me to an out of town dealership and a Civic at MSRP. But I decided I wanted a truck after just two years, and that was my last Honda (car). In 1993 I really wanted an Accord wagon for our family car, but Honda didn’t sell a stick shift wagon in California so we got a Toyota. I think the short test drive in that ‘82 hatch is the only time I’ve ever driven an Accord, and I don’t think I’ve even ridden in any others except a handful of taxis in Taiwan. So it’s interesting to read about an “Accord family”.
As someone who lives on the coast, although 700 miles south of Tillamook, I have always thought that Sisters would be a very appealing place to live. I’ll be curious to read more about it as well as your cars.
One of these was my future wife’s first new car that was not chosen because it was cheap. She loved that Accord (an 88 LX) and still talks about how she misses it. They have gone virtually extinct in my part of the country.
I remember reading that story a couple of years ago! Something like I married a keeper. I’ve been reading COALs for years. It’s fun to put the stories about my own COALs to paper after they have been bouncing around my head.
Hi fellow Oregonian! I know those places quite well, especially Sisters. Been to that Rays a few times to stock up while hiking or vacationing in the area.
Yes, these Accords were golden, or tan, in your case. I remember first reading about long distance commuters in the Bay Area racking up 300+k miles without issues back in the early-mid ’80s in Accords. That was something of a paradigm shift at the time, now we take that for granted, mostly.
Mine was a mix between gold and tan. You could definitely call it gold, but 16 year old me liked the Tan Sedan.
It’s fun reading stories that take place in Oregon. Oregon is underrepresented in pop culture. There was another COAL series that took place in Oregon, and I remember they had an epic trip to Lincoln City featuring a breakdown and a few trips back to Portland to get parts. It’s fun reading about places you’ve been. I’m sorry to say I’ve only been to the Curbside Classics holy grail of Eugene three times. Twice for a Duck game with my dad and last year to watch Back to the Future the musical at the Hult Center.
At the time, those cars were everywhere, especially in that teal color. Over the past 30 plus years, my mom has had three of them. The second one was given to my niece as a “learn to drive” car and it’s still running. Mom’s current Accord is a 2016, bought lightly used, and I don’t think anything has gone wrong with it other than maintenance. She always gets the 6 cylinder. I remember them putting a leather interior in the first one, a coupe, because the factory didn’t have the option then.
A customer at Rays who lived in my subdivision of Tollgate drove the same generation of Accord sedan as I did, but it was a top of the line model and had a beautiful leather interior. I was never sure if it was factory or not.
Welcome Tyler!
A good friend of mine had an Accord just like yours, same color…which as I seem to recall, many were. It was her first “grown up” new car and she loved it. I rode in it a lot and always felt that it was solid, appropriately-sized car that had a lot more luxury than I’d ever experienced in a Honda before. It’s easy to see how this was a huge hit for Honda here in the US.
The clamshell iBooks were great and remarkably sturdy. Around about 2001, I outfitted my entire staff with them. I had both the lime and the orange ones and sadly only held on to the orange (“Tangerine”) ones. I still have 2. I should have held on to the lime ones though as they’re rather rare nowadays.
Thanks Jeff! I have since collected quite a few old Macs, and the clamshells are my favorite. I have these displayed at my office and love to boot them up and tinker.
The Accord was great. Super comfortable and reliable. It just wasn’t the dream.
Ah, another Apple collector! 🙂
I’m not at the office now, so I can’t show you my museum. Let’s just say that the clamshell iBooks have good company — one of each color iMac G3, PowerBooks, IIC, Fat Mac, just about one of everything until the modern age….even a Newton. And yes, they all boot up.
And they take up a lot less space than cars.
That’s awesome! Let’s see. I’ve got the following Macs:
2 Macintosh Classic IIs, 1 Macintosh SE/30, 1 Macintosh TV, PowerBook Duo 210, Duo 2300c, PowerBook 1400c (my first computer), PowerBook 2400c, PowerBook 3400c, PowerBook G3 (Wallstreet, Lombard, and Pismo), three clamshell iBooks (Tangerine, Blueberry, and graphite), a blue and white G3, a few TiBooks, a couple aluminum PowerBook G4s, an eMac, a blue Dalmatian iMac, an iMac G4, a couple of G5 towers, and several modern Macs. There are probably some more, but that I was I can remember off the top of my head.
I bought my wife a Medium Metallic Green ’83 Accord, 4 door with a 5 spd stick, A/C etc… Ivory mouse fur interior. I really liked that Accord, as I have virtually all of my 2 n 4 wheeled Hondas. That Green ’83 kinda sticks as we drove it down to the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama where the USMC in itzz infinite WHIZZDUMM sent me to Hawk CW Radair Repair School in ’65-’66.
We had a nice family vacation trip and unlike my ’65 Honda 305 Super Hawk, back then; the Green Accord kept us delightfully comfy in Huntsvilles’ Summer heat n HI humidity. Overall it was a comfortable car for the then 4 of us to cross a scenic piece of America in the summer of ’84. Also, given the 5 spd, it’s suspension and good brakes it was a fairly entertaining car to drive on the twisty mountaionbackroads I had long ago ridden on my Super Hawk! 🙂 DFO
Great story, looking forward to the next chapter. I have a 2000 Civic EX that I bought new in the fall of ’99 and am still driving it today at 330,000 miles. I wish they still made cars like this.
Welcome! I was also a “courtesy clerk” for a few years of high school and even first semester of college. Same era, though not continuously 2001-2004.
Welcome Tyler, great story. Nothing beats youth and a first car.
Welcome Tyler! I had an ’86 Accord back around 1999/2000, dark bronze exterior with brown interior. I bought it as a cheap runabout. It had had a hard life but was tidy and the a/c worked – and it was my first car with cruise control which was fun!
I remember the great ergonomics, the pop-up lights, the soggy handling when pushed. Nice looking though, and I loved the shape of the back window.
It was a great runabout car until the oil pump blew. The cost of accessing and replacing the oil pump was about the same as a secondhand engine, so replacement engine it was. Once replaced, I sold it, and it was wrecked in an accident a week later. A sad end to an otherwise decent car. Looking forward to the next chapter in your story!
The early Honda Accord. Nothing else like it. Started with a ’79 hatchback in our family. The last one we had was an ’89. That was a good series. I still miss the simple controls, the clicky push button ventilation controls, and you didn’t have to go to a computer screen to set the cruise control. My family’s had about 18 Honda’s including a couple Acura’s.
You never mentioned your dream car. We’ll just have to wait? 🙂
“It wasn’t fast. It wasn’t cool. But it was freedom.”
Boy howdy does this ever ring true .
IMO, any vehicles that gives you the choice to leave or stay, is as cool as it gets .
The split households thing to isn’t much fun, I remember it with distaste .
You’re a talented writer .
-Nate
It’s cool to see someone from the same general area. We lived in Beaverton and currently live in Bend so I have a passing knowledge of Tillamook and pass through Sisters all the time. Your Accord sounds a bit like the family beater Buick which has well over 200,000 miles and came from Terrebonne. Driving makes a big difference, as a parent, I liked not having to drive offspring places, although I do worry a bit about their driving. Fortunately when my parents split I was an adult and living on my own. I also moved to Oregon from NY shortly after that.
I do remember colorful Macs although we never had any Macbooks or iBooks, just a Bondi Blue iMac and my old Mac SE that are still in the closet.