Faults:

Head gasket perished at 98000km.

Window trim peeled off at high speed.

Mystery carburettor problem.

General Comments:

Awesome little car, utterly fantastic. Extremely reliable, extremely light.

I don't know where a 28 year old 1.6 got any power from, but when pressed the thing could go.

Handled very nicely.

Additionally, amazingly good with fuel, both in terms of economy and blowing high octane odours into the cabin.

An old banger, but what a banger...

Faults:

Replaced the original struts (23 years old) in 2003 at 130,000.

Seats are very worn, getting them re-upholstered.

Has a slight hesitation on take off.

Replace the transmission o-rings last year, was getting hard to shift.

General Comments:

I find all the faults acceptable for a 23 year old vehicle. The car originally was sold in Georgia and made its way to Vermont (poor car!).

We bought it from a kid who painted over the spiffy red color and its now a dull spray can black, but not for long.

I am in the process of restoring the car to close to its original condition this year.

The car is very fun to drive as it has rack and pinion steering, a power sunroof and rides very low to the ground. After replacing all four struts (with OEM Honda of course) and tightening up all of suspension components, the car handles really well and has more power than my 99 Civic.

The black paint comes off this year and the seats are going to be be re-upholstered... hopefully I will be able to do some minor fixes as well.

Thanks for reading.

Faults:

Burnt a litre of oil a month before valve seals were replaced.

Uneven tyre wear and tracking a nightmare.

Key snapped off in boot lock.

Blew rear stop lamps every month.

General Comments:

I bought this car on a whim for &330 (pounds) and loved it from the first moment.

In silver and good condition this really turned heads mostly because people wondered what it was.

I drove the car for 18 months and only saw another 4 in the whole country.

I loved the sunroof and high lined doors you could only just see over. It had orange cloth seats and a strange in-built radio with no FM.

Steering was hard work, but the performance was okay for a heavy 17 year old car.

I had various things done - new shocks, clutch, ball joint and even rebuilt the cylinder head myself and sprayed the rusted bonnet.

My car was written off for the sake of a new door. Someone hit it when parked. Ill never forgive them.

Faults:

Off-side brake caliper seized due to perished rubber seal.

Bulb in tail light blew.

General Comments:

How cool was this car! If only I'd kept it. I bought it as an "Emergency Run-around" as my piece of crap Nissan 200SX kept breaking down and was back at the dealers for over 2 months.

Some features of the car which really impressed me: Aluminium engine, electric sun roof, in car electrical fault display, wicked old style radio built into the dash, bonnet vents.

The car was not very powerful (80 mph max comfortably) and the handling was crap. It would under-steer everywhere, I had to drive it so slowly that people behind used to get up my back-side a bit.

All in all, a brilliant little motor. I was sad to see it go and still wish I'd never sold it. I paid £180 for it and sold it 2 months later for £450.