This was one of those classic classified finds, an immaculately maintained used Honda being sold by a retired couple.
My Honda Aerodeck was a real corker. The older couple I brought it from had owned it from 1990 and the folder of records they produced for it made a satisfying thump when it hit the kitchen table. When they said full service history they really meant it. They even had a notebook where they had logged every time they had filled it with fuel (apart from the summer of 1992 when they forget to. The old chap felt the need to apologise for that).
The Aerodeck was a kind of ´sporty` 3 door estate not unlike the old Lancia HPE or Volvo 480. It is a little bit daft to have a practical estate car, then make it little less practical by not having rear passenger doors, but it does make for a look that is a bit more interesting than the boring Accord saloon. The interest stops there however, underneath it is exactly the same as the three-box, so neck snapping acceleration and lively handling should not be expected. Having said that, Honda´s legendary build quality means the driving experience probably hasn´t deteriorated much from when it was new.
Ah yes, build quality; my word was this car well screwed together. It was only brought as a second car old banger but I ended up using it for everything, and never once had the phrase ´old car` cross my mind. The previous owners reported no faults, and nothing replaced bar service items, and the service records backed that up. Get that; a six figure mileage accumulated over nineteen years and absolutely nothing had gone wrong. OK, it´s partly a testament to the cost-no-object maintenance regime but, still, it shows that Honda knew how to build reliable cars.
Running costs of a car this old are all about keeping it on the road, so in that regard it was very cheap to run. The fuel consumption was not particularly impressive, probably related to the piece of Victorian plumbing located where modern cars have a fuel injector. If you’re too young to remember them, look up ‘carburetter’ on Wikipedia.
Eventually there came the time to move it on, and the Aerodeck enthusiast who bought it (yes, such people exist) seemed over the moon to be taking it off my hands. I can only hope that he, or some other careful owner, still has it on the road, because it really was a good car.