About a month ago, we wrote about an excellent human on the internet who goes by The Rad Report and how they were selling their absolutely gorgeous. Now, The Rad Report is back at it again, and the listing is as incredible as the one before.
This time, The Rad Report is offering a fully restored—and frankly gorgeous—1990 Honda CRX Si for $16,000 over on the . The seller has even compiled an incredible full of hundreds of pictures and everything you could possibly need to know about this car.
“Driving is coming to an end,” the listing begins. “It’s inevitable, probably not happening as soon as the world’s second-least-helpful twitterer says it is, but it will happen. This period we are in now is perhaps the least enjoyable time for driving in the last century. When a car can almost pilot itself, it gives the driver a sense of false security and real distraction. Driving becomes akin to eating popcorn while watching Succession. You’ll only remember your doing it when you start choking [sic].”
It only gets better from there, with The Rad Report offering a philosophy on the era of machines in question:
Cars of the late ‘80s to the mid-’00s represent a radically different philosophy. One that assumes driving is an experience worth pursuing and something that most people can enjoy. The technology of sports cars had democratized to the point where an economy coupe could have four-wheel disk brakes, fuel injection, complicated multi-link suspension, and an aluminum engine block. It could be performance-oriented, reliable, and still gloriously analog.
The apotheosis of this proletarian performance is undoubtedly the CRX Si. Its cult following has never faltered; years after production, these cars are still seen as a worthy platform with “tuner” parts available and plentiful. But, ironically, this continued engagement with the model has left very few unmodified examples intact.
For me, this car is not about nostalgia. It’s not about revisiting some halcyon time when “America was great,” and Star Wars was a trilogy. I did not purchase it and then restore its aesthetic and handling characteristics so that I could imagine myself to be 16 again (assuming I bought the car 8-years-used in 1996). My goal with this car, and all my cars, is to have the unique experience the designers and engineers imagined. To rediscover the balance of utility and performance they envisioned. To drive this car.
(I’d buy this car on the basis of the poetic listing alone, I’m not going to lie.)
While the $16,000 price is likely to get some snark on the internet for the 150,000 miles on the odometer, The Rad Report has a counter: “Perceived monetary value reflects a shared set of aesthetic and performance values; the price only makes sense if the previous owner’s actions feel precisely like what you would have done to the car. The two of you must be in a continuum of understanding and action.”
That being said, the car comes with copious amounts of documentation, including owner’s manuals, a history of everything The Rad Report did to the car, and even excerpts of the Honda’s original reviews in car magazines when it first hit the market. You’re pretty much buying a preserved piece of history that you can still enjoy when you take it out on the road.
H/t Mike—thank you!