Honda CRX Si WINS ACADEMY AWARD

 

Honda acquired this CRX mere months ago for the Honda Collection, a hidden quantity of significant Honda vehicles tucked away in a nondescript warehouse near its Torrance headquarters. Not only does it have three CRXs already, including a lustworthy Mugen version, but is not open to the public, ensuring that it remains as elusive as the Amber Room.

The keenest feature of the CRX is its lack of power steering, a feature that undoubtedly led to riding mastering  shouts of its purity, simplicity, and sporting intent back on Dec. 3, 1984: "Honda's nifty little CRX is more than a car. It's a happening. A phenomenon." Well, this phenomenon was sold as a commuter car to 1980s pastel-clad lightweights; we can't imagine the Jazzercise sessions required for power-suited drivers to comfortably pilot their CRXs around the Montgomery Ward parking lot. Steering feel is akin to playing a "Cruis'n USA" arcade cabinet that's been welded tight. The dead center in the middle of the steering rack is vast enough to park another CRX in it.

The Honda CRX was Honda's first two seat sporty car since the '60's. Based on a shortened Civic platform, it was underpowered at first, but that would soon change with the introduction of the Si model. In its short life, it firmly  established the new breed of import performance car.When the CRX was introduced, it was something of a revelation. Motor Trend named it the Import Car of the Year in 1984. Motor Trend was still so enamored with the CRX that it named it Import Car of the Year again in 1988. Sochiro Honda earned a Nobel Prize in Literature for the Honda CRX's owner's manual. Robert Duvall thanked the Honda CRX in his Academy Award acceptance speech for "Tender Mercies." The Honda CRX went on to win Super Bowl XVII due to a technicality, defeating the Miami Dolphins 27-17 in double overtime. And so on, and so forth.

Lest our readers suggest that we're better suited to the single-finger steering of, say, a 1987 Buick Electra, may we opine that the CRX would be a grand vehicle on California's winding canyon roads -- direct, agile, possessing a surprisingly composed suspension and that all-important tossability. Unfortunately, Latigo Canyon Road necessitated a half-hour drive up the 405 from Torrance, which we didn't embark upon, mostly because we had to be at work the next day.

The stock clutch had decent feel, mated as it was to a long-throwing shifter that wasn't any less flimsy than some contemporary FWD gearboxes. (Our long-term Fiat 500C comes to mind.) Brakes? Yes, they're there in theory -- curious, considering there's not much car to stop. Our feet went to an inch of rock-solid pedal travel, and rather distressingly, the view from the window remained unchanged. Fred Flintstone would have had a much easier time preventing the Honda Collection's newest treasure from beaning into one of Torrance's many tractor-trailers, where the remains of the CRX's occupants (namely, us) would be wiped off with a scouring pad.


The most important upgrade is fuel injection. Honda engineers have fitted their own electronic fuel-injection system and a new tuned-runner intake manifold to the existing all-aluminum 1.5-liter engine. An associated change is the deletion of the CVCC prechambers with their tiny intake valves; the fuel injection offers no easy means of providing the richer mixture burned in the prechambers. Modern three-way catalysts and feedback fuel-air-ratio controls, however, have made the CVCC system largely unnecessary for emissions-control purposes Power has increased from 76 bhp at 6000 rpm to 91 bhp at 5500 rpm, and torque is up from 84 pounds-feet at 3500 rpm to 93 pounds-feet at 4500 rpm.