This Completely Stock 1995 Honda Civic EX Might Be One of the Cleanest Left
Save the survivors!
Stop for a minute and think about the last time you saw an unmodified early-1990s Honda Civic on the road that still looked like it did the day it rolled off the lot. No wing, no lowering kit and no coffee-can exhaust—just a clean car. They're a true rarity, and this one might be one of the best. Up for auction with no reserve right now on Bring a Trailer is a bone-stock, low-mileage 1995 Honda Civic EX Coupe still wearing its factory grey paint and its original hubcaps.
Honda sold well over a million fifth-generation Civics in America alone, so overall scarcity has never been the problem. The issue is that even before a trio of the cars helped Dom and crew boost truckloads of VCRs in The Fast and The Furious, their robust build quality and extensive aftermarket support made them popular with tuners trying to wring out far more horsepower-per-liter than a standard economy car should ever be forced to offer.
Today, most of the cars left on the road are limping along with varying degrees of off-the-shelf Pep Boys mods hanging on for dear life. That this car is wearing a clean stock paint color instead of a rainbow of primer or rattle-can spray is a miracle by itself—and that's just the start of the preservationist delights on display here.
Thirty thousand miles isn't exactly delivery mileage, but it's a fraction of the total distance you can push a Civic with proper care and maintenance. Having said that, this won’t be a car that you can buy and ignore. The last 25 years have been kind to the Civic, but there are a few things that need attention. The seller notes evidence of an oil leak under the engine and cracks in the CV boots. That’s on top of any number of other issues that can arise with a low-mileage older car which, legendary Honda reliability aside, will happen.
Unfortunately for driving enthusiasts, in stock form this particular Civic is about as sedate as they come—the 1.6-liter VTEC inline-four made 125 horsepower when new, and it's connected to that minor tragedy of an automatic gearbox, which for most people will kill the possibility of buying the car out of the gate. A manual swap is completely doable, but also kind of defeats the point of buying a time capsule survivor.
This is undoubtedly a tempting purchase for someone looking to build a car for Hot Import Nights, but I say let it be. With a current auction bid of $4,500 and a week left on the clock at the time of this article, there’s plenty of time for the Civic to pick up some serious interest, but even at twice that price it’d make a compelling weekend ride for trips to local Radwood events—or just running errands around town.
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