I'm smitten with an 18 year old Japanese...!

It was love at first drive...

I spotted it across a car fair, behind the row of frankenstein rot boxes with different colour body panels, passed the horrid racing striped, black bonnet-ed rust buckets. As I took a look around the front and the sides I thought hmmm looks stock, around the back I saw an "SiR" badge - good stuff!... And an aftermarket exhaust... (well I am partial to an exhaust...) peeked inside... Oh those are nice (stock) bucket seats... Are those electric folding mirrors? Aircon... That'll surely come in handy during a New Zealand summer... Hey, Bose speakers! Are those Xenons?? They're stock? on a 1998?? Hopped in, started her up and from the moment I drove off I knew she would be the one!

The sound and feel of the car instantly reminded me of my old SiR CRX, my first true love... It drove as it should, everything worked, and so we made a deal and I brought her home!

It's a '98 Honda Torneo SiR 2 Litre DOHC VTEC... And while it may not seem like anything special, I went to this car fair on a Sunday morning with $1500 and for various reasons I had to come home with a car that day... I was hoping I would find something that just about ran to bring us from A to B, that's it! I didn't care how old it was, what the condition of the paint is, what options it had... So needless to say, coming home with a 200bhp car with actual creature comforts on it and equivalent of NCT and TAX was unbelievable... $1500 is around 1000 Euro to put things into perspective...

Anyway, fast forward a few weeks later, and I've to say I'm delighted with it overall

PROS:
- Really enjoyable to drive both long distance and short blasts
- Quick (VTEC Yo! Poweeerrrrr etc etc etc)
- Bucket Seats
- Toys
- Reliable (I will NEVER take this for granted again)
- Say what you will, but it sounds bloody excellent after 5,750 RPM (see above regarding "VTEC Yo") :P
- (specific to this car I guess) It's not a show car, and so I couldn't care less where I park it, if a bird decides to relieve itself on it, or if I have to drive down an unpaved road

Cons:
- FWD... It feels so wrong....
- To enjoy the engine fully you need to be at frankly anti-social RPMs... not ideal.. pretty much ever really! VTEC should be permanently on IMO... But then it'd probably be even less economical, which brings me to the next point...
- 25-29 MPG.... Seriously? I was getting better than that out of the 335i...
- It's not much of a looker, in fact probably the least interesting design from that era of Hondas

I know you'll ask for a photo anyway so here it is!



It might be partially nostalgia, but it's also just a good car! And where I may have been on the fence regarding an S2000 a couple of years ago, I'm absolutely convinced now more than ever that I would absolutely love one. A RWD Honda roadster with 250bhp and that lovely light/agile Honda feel? Yes please!

Just wanted to share my experience... But I understand if I'm banned now