In 1980, my family’s brick-red 1968 Volkswagen Beetle (with a semi-automatic transmission) caught fire while we were driving it, and while I think the car was quite repairable, my strangely fire-averse parents took this as a cue to finally look into getting a new car. After a lot of car shopping, which I remember vividly even though I was a little kid (I was advocating for either one of the last convertible VW Beetles or an AMC Pacer, no idea why they didn’t listen to me) my parents settled on what was by far the smart, safest choice they could have made: a 1980 Honda Accord sedan. Accords were absolutely everywhere back then, and the car served us well for years. Now, though, I never see first-generation Honda Accords on the road, which makes me wonder why not? Where did all the old Accords go?
You remember these early Accords, don’t you? You should! They were a big deal. They were introduced in 1976 as a bigger, more family-oriented brother to the little Civic, with a similar transverse-engine/FWD layout and the same Honda Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion (CVCC) carbureted engine technology that let Hondas meet emissions requirements without a catalytic converter.
They came in two-door hatchback versions and four-door sedan versions, and the styling was clean and pretty understated, with a bit of tasteful chrome jewelry and very conventional, but attractive, proportions.
Japanese market cars got rectangular headlamps and wing mirrors, as you can see in this ad:
Though in America all of these first-gen Accords had quad round headlamps and conventional door mirrors:
Recognize that Voice of Honda in that commercial? Just a few years earlier that same voice was warning us that women weaken legs:
Yep, the voice of of Honda was Burgess Meredith, Rocky’s trainer.
These Accords had 1800cc engines in their US-spec form, making about 72 horsepower, and you could get them with a five-speed (proudly advertised with a 5speed badge) or a three-speed automatic, well, at least in 1980, as Honda’s peculiar two-speed sorta-semi-automatic Hondamatic transmission was still offered up until 1979.
I’ll have to write about that thing separately at some point.
Anyway, these were good cars, with excellent build quality and getting good gas mileage and priced well. In 1980, my parents’ Accord sedan would have set them back about $6,515, equivalent to around $23,000 today, which isn’t too bad for a new car.
Man, now I’m wondering – I remember saving up money around 1981 to get an Atari 2600 (we called it a VCS then but you know) and if I recall I had to save up $140 for it. I think I maybe managed half, and we got the rest at Hanukkah or something. What would that be today? Let’s see. Woah! About $450! Holy shit. That’s a lot of money to play flickery Pac-Man. Worth it.
Accords weren’t crazy, disposable-like-a-Yugo cheap, and they were built to high standards. People seemed to like them, too. Everything about these cars suggests that we should see more of these on the streets, right?
I get that there’s not going to be many late ’70s-early ’80s cars out on roads in general, but you do see some tooling around, some ratty survivors barely hanging on to automotive life, some clearly restored and cared for. In general, there’s certain older car categories that seem to be survivors: I still see a good amount of ’60s and ’70s Beetles, a lot of old pickup trucks, especially ’70s and ’80s Fords, collectible sports cars ranging in value from CRT-television-valued MGBs to expensive Jaguars, and even a good smattering of Japanese cars from the era, like old Celicas or Subaru Brats, and there’s even a reasonable amount of forgotten American iron like ’80s-era Buick Centuries piloted by near-century-old people. But no early Accords.
I guess this surprises me because, like I said, there were so many Accords when I was growing up. Hatchback Accords, often in silver, sedan Accords, often in the red that ours was or the interesting sea-foam green they came in, with interiors to match. They were like Toyota RAV4s or Honda CR-Vs are today, forming a sizable chunk of any parking lot you happened to find yourself in.
The sales numbers for the first generation of Accords, which ran from 1976 to 1982, show that plenty were out there:
| 1976 | 18,643 |
| 1977 | 75,995 |
| 1978 | 120,841 |
| 1979 | 157,919 |
| 1980 | 185,972 |
| 1981 | 172,557 |
| 1982 | 195,524 |
Add all those up and you’re damn near a million cars sold in America. As an example of another old car I tend to still see around that was not uncommon in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the MGBs I mentioned before, only about a third of the Accord’s numbers (298,000 or so) of those were sold in America, and those had vastly worse build quality than the Hondas.
So, why do I see so many more MGBs soaking grocery store parking lots with dirty oil than I do Accords?
Maybe Accords were too, you know, boring? An MGB is a little sportscar full of charm. Sure, they had plenty of issues, but maybe the overall enjoyment of them, as opposed to a much more fiercely practical car like an Accord, is why they ended up saved?
Perhaps it’s because of the Accord’s reliability that, counterintuitively, makes them so uncommon now? To use the MGB example again, those were far more likely to have some problem that put them under a tarp for decades until someone finally decided to really restore it and get it back on the road.
An Accord, on the other hand, would likely have run and run until it was genuinely used up, worn out like a beloved pair of jeans, and then sent off to the junkyard. Accords weren’t having (generally) weird electrical gremlins that parked them for years. They went and went until they had nothing left to give.
That’s a theory, anyway.
Maybe its because I grew up with Accords forming such a huge part of the automotive quilt that draped the background of my life that I find it so baffling that so few survive today. On the incredibly rare occasions you actually do encounter one, they always seem to be such tidy, charming, well-designed cars that would likely be a real gem to own today.
Sadly, that’s very unlikely to happen. Very occasionally, you’ll see these pop up on auction sites, but compare that to cars like the BMW 2002 or something with a real following and you’ll realize that really, they’re all effectively gone.
There’s a lot of reasons why cars some cars survive and why some don’t, and those reasons are not always based on how good or popular the car was back in the day, or even how many were made. I can’t really think of a better example of this than these almost-forgotten, once-common-as-bad-opinions Hondas, now just fading memories in the minds of old bastards like myself.
I bought a silver ‘77 hatch (black cloth & 5 speed). I paid the big bux for AC. One little quirk was the leaking head gasket. Honda bought the 1st one. I ran it for years until I misjudged the coefficient of friction of wet engineering fabric placed in preparation for an asphalt overlay. It did not fare as well as the Pinto wagon that stopped my slide. It was though, quite easy to work on and had a nice cockpit.
Loved my Honda Accord until I hit a bump and a huge split formed right down the middle of the rear seat footwell.
80s Accords were made of Japanese lace, the only substance more subject to corrosion than an Italian or British car of the era.
Honda in before 1992 or so: Mechanically, awesome. Corrosion protection? What’s that?
Here’s one:
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/d/concord-1980-honda-accord-lx/7494881742.html
And an ’82:
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/d/hayward-1982-honda-accord/7492878681.html
I even saw a mint 21 window VW bus today.
The same thing happened to Accords that happened to nearly every other economy car of that time. They were driven into the ground. Now, some cheap cars (Beetle, Corolla, etc), had enough durability to keep running for years and/or enough charm for some people to preserve them, but the other vehicles(Your Subaru’s, Datsun’s, and the various American compacts) either rusted out due to the rarity of decent rustproofing fifty years ago or were simply driven until the engine seized or the transmission blew out, after which they were scrapped and turned into other things.
Speaking from a country where rust is a lot rarer, Jason seems to be on the money for too reliable so that when they finally broke it just wasn’t worth saving. My dad had an Australian market green hatchback (auto unfortunately) back in the late 90s, and it eventually gave up the ghost because the slow radiator leak became a big radiator leak in the middle of a traffic jam in summer. Dad knew about the leak and had looked into getting it fixed but the cost to replace the radiator was greater than the value of the whole car!
Ashes to ashes, and rust to rust.
My recollection is that these rusted quickly. My parents bought a,77 hatchback, when they had one trim level, three colors and the only factory option was Hondamatic. Ours was a 5 speed, and my sister and I both learned to drive in it. We lived in New,York and the Honda had blisters in the paint by 1982 or 83 and was sold in 86 or 87. It was a fun car to drive and was only a little less sporty than my 78 Scirocco. The 84 Accord that replaced it was more refined and had AC and a cassette player but tall gearing robbed the fun out of it.
Rare, but I’ve seen a few survivors up here in the Pacific Northwest. The environment is extremely forgiving on cars here but it’s mostly a Volvo, Subaru and Saab crowd.
I purchased an 82 Accord new. It was an excellent car, but mine had a problem with very audible gear whine in 5th which was annoying because I drove a lot on the interstate. The dealer and Honda told me there was no fix to be had. So after a year, I traded it in for more than I paid, on a Chevy.
They weren’t enthusiast cars, people treated them more like reliable appliances – just like very few people bothered to save their old Zenith TV when it was no longer worth repairing, despite giving very good service for many years, nobody thought to save their old Accord when it just got too worn out.
Air cooled Volkswagens and MG roadsters always had a fanatical following, even when they weren’t old cars yet, so there were always enthusiasts and hoarders to keep them around and either on the road or rotting under a tarp in the driveway, but its only been really within the past decade or so that vintage Japanese cars have really begun to be fully appreciated, and the early Accords were already almost all gone by that point.
In states that use road salt, they were driven until the body rusted out too badly to pass inspection. In other states, they were driven until something expensive broke, then were junked. In both cases, the odometer probably did get well into the six digits first, but nobody went to extraordinary lengths and expense to keep them alive beyond their natural lifespan.
My dad and I bought an ’81 hatchback circa ’92 with the intention of rebuilding the engine and me driving it as my 1st car – I was 15. Yeah, the vacuum lines – we never were sure we had them hooked up correctly. The Chilton’s manual wasn’t very clear about those. We eventually got it running just long enough to drive it 1/4 mile up the street to the junior high school when oil started pouring out where the bell housing meets the engine block. I don’t remember what we did wrong, but it never ran after that, and we donated it and bought a ’91 Toyota pickup that I drove the next (almost) 10 years.
I recall my Dad purchasing a tan 1980 Accord with tan cloth seats. The thing that intrigued me the most about it was the fact that it had power windows AND a power antenna (still strangely mounted at the top of the A pillar for…reasons). I really enjoyed that car for the brief amount of time we had it.
The ’83 Accord I inherited during my college years, on the other hand? Complete and total shit box that ended up being three different shades of gray by the time my Dad donated it.
I really liked those old Hondas, especially the hatchbacks. I had a ’92 Civic hatchback that went, and went, and went. I finally donated it to NPR when it had 365,000 miles on it. I would have driven it longer if a bonehead hadn’t done a U-turn into my driver’s side front fender. It still ran fine though and didn’t even burn oil. No I kind of which I had kept it.
I remember seeing one of these for the first time around 1990. A friend picked one up for a couple hundred dollars and it had rust in places I had never saw rust before on a car. He kept trying to weld one of the engine pulleys back together. One of the doors, I think it was the driver’s rear, was cobbled/screwed onto the car with long self-tappers somehow as it had fallen completely off at one point. I have no idea what was actually holding the windshield to the body. It didn’t last long as a beater – I’m guessing it completely turned into Fe2O3 on his back forty over the course of the next few years. In the Midwest, these didn’t have a chance.
Yep. Was about to comment basically the same thing. Rust. My mom had one in the 80s, said she drove it till the driver’s door quite literally rusted off the hinges and fell to the ground. Seems like a common issue, and a funny one at that!
I can’t speak for the whole country, but there wasn’t a single one of these left in the salt-crusted Midwest by 1990, let alone 2022.
I just saw this after posting my own Midwestern take. Apparently, my friend bought the last one around! Or, my memory is fuzzy and that was actually 1989.
Yup. They are all piles of rust now, everywhere. You didn’t need salted roads; occasional rain would do the trick.
Yes to this.
The great philosopher Rusty Wheal’s words of wisdom come to mind:
“All inaugural Accords shall be entRUSTED back to the earth for whence them came.”
Well, my ’84 (second gen) Accord lost ita brakes when the lines rusted through, an was so rusty underneath that I couldn’t put it on a lift to replace them. Started raising the lift, there was a crunch, a shower of rusty chunks rained down, one back door popped open, and that was that. Ran like a top, had no structure left underneath. And it was only 11 years old. I imagine a lot of them met similar fates.
Of course, you’re right. The first gen Accords all got used up, rusted out, crashed, and forgotten because they were really good cars that were excellent at piling up the miles in short order. People just drove the hell out of them and then bought a 2nd gen Accord, or maybe even an Acura Legend of things were going well in your Reagan era corporate job.
Absolutely no one thought Accords were special enough to preserve like an old GTO or Corvette.
What’s maybe just as weird is where are all the second gen Civics of the same era? They were everywhere as well and they are just GONE. I would love to find an ’83 Civic S that I drove post college. There are essentially 0 of them anywhere in the states.
Even weirder, try finding a first generation Integra. It seems like everyone I know had one as their first slightly upscale new car, and they’re all gone too. (Yes, I also bought one new). There are absolutely none of them left, especially in the midwest.
Yup, they just dissolved. In fact I was working at an Acura dealer in the early nineties, by the time the third gen Integras were out, the firsts were going back to the earth. It also didn’t help that each generation was better than the last. We all thought the first gen was amazing, but the second made everything better, and the third, maybe apart from the frog-eyes, was better still. I’m a big third gen fanboy.
hint: David Tracy aka rust 😛
I found one for sale for you right here:
https://classics.autotrader.com/classic-cars/1981/honda/accord/101237990
I miss my ’84 Civic, which was completely brilliant even when the bumper mounts rusted through and my dad had to fix it with some steel tubing he had lying around.
I wonder when Hondas stopped dissolving into a pile of iron oxide big enough to attract stray David Tracys.
Used up, disposed of, but there’s a few hanging around out west, I’m sure. I still see them for sale every once in a while. Neat cars, I always liked them.
I’ll take a sedan, most definitely with the 5-SPEED badge. Make it green.
Yep, our first Honda was a 1981 Hampstead Green Accord LX sedan with a 5 speed. What a great gearbox and the visibility with that low belt line was fantastic.
I had a 1989 Honda Civic DX. A monster in the snow, great gas mileage, comfortable, dependable. Hell I’d still be driving it if I hadn’t flipped it an had it roll 3 complete turns. After that I sold it for $500 and saw it still driving years later with the shell doors I installed.
As others have said, they dissolved. What didn’t end up as iron oxide is probably now part of a Chinese bridge construction project.
They rusted away. All cars rusted like crazy back then, but none worse than Japanese cars of the era.
This is absolutely true. I had two of these, a ’77 and a ’78, both hatchbacks. A buddy of mine down the street inherited his mom’s ’81 sedan. We drove the crap out of those. But in all my years of owning shitboxes in San Diego and L.A., out of the couple dozen cars and trucks I owned over the years, the only ones that rusted out in the arid SoCal sun were the old Hondas. I too used to see them all over, now they’re hen’s teeth in L.A. Can’t imagine they exist at all anywhere there’s actual precipitation.
I’m an 80’s child from the Midwest. These were completely gone by the time I reached middle school.
I’m from central New England and can confirm that I remember seeing one of these first-gen Accords, ever. The third-gen cars (late ’80s) were starting to rust in my earliest memories.
Except for the rust issue, they were among the best cars I ever owned. I really can’t speak highly enough of them. Everything was very thoughtfully laid out and made sense, and they were cheap and easy to work on, and just ran great for a long, long time. And here’s a weird bit of Donald trivia: the fastest I ever personally have driven was in the ’78 Accord hatchback. And it didn’t have a hood. I was heading down the gentle grade on I-8 about 40 miles east of downtown San Diego, there was zero traffic on a long, straight stretch, and I figured what the hell. Got to 115 mph before I finally approached a curve and had to slow down. I was mildly surprised how well it handled, even without a hood. Was never tempted to exceed ninety in public again, even in objectively much faster and safer cars. That Accord was probably the best $500 car I ever owned.
I sold Hondas beginning in 1980, and our dealership had a 7 month waiting list because we were the only ones around not selling over MSRP.
The Accords were so well built and the handling and responsiveness had a very European feel. We took BMWs in trade all the time on the Accords. When these cars arrived, we had to install the carpeting and air conditioning in them!
The one major flaw in the durability of the Accords was their habit to develop rust in the top of the front fenders, where water and road salt would splash up and begin their dirty work, since there were no fender liners.
That’s what happened to my 1977 Accord in 1982. It got replacement fenders from Honda under an extended warranty but they never matched the rest of the faded paint. Honda declined to repaint the entire car under warranty.
My GF at the time had a Civic and they both rusted away before their time.
Canadian model Accords in 1977 had a 1600 without CVCC. Maybe an 1800 came later.
There are BOOKS written about that…
https://www.amazon.com/Arrogance-Accords-Inside-Story-Scandal/dp/0965776611
Since my family had several of these I know exactly what happened. Either one of the 700 CVCC vacuum lines broke and it got scrapped, or since most of our were mostly composed of rust by the 90’s I can imagine many of them have returned back to the earth at this point.