Fuzz Townshend takes us behind the scenes of the restos on the latest series of Car SOS. This week let’s talk about CR-X, baby…
‘There was a time, back in the late 2000s –when I was CCW’s sister magazine PracticalClassics’ technical editor – that I struggled to appreciate the Honda CR-X’s finer points. After all, the fast decaying, high-mileage example sitting on the magazine’s workshop yard and owned by the ever hopeful (that someone else would take pity and fix his car) deputy editor, Matt Jones, seemed way too new to be considered a true classic.
‘Wind the clock forwards 15 years and these little Hondas ooze classic charm so it was little wonder that the Car SOS team found itself with a white second generation early 1990s version on its hands during Series 12 of the show.
‘Owned for two decades by IT engineer, Tim, the car hadn’t escaped the ‘slamming’ crew’s attentions, suffering the consequences of underside scrapes and wheel arch fouling. That said, the car’s period ‘proofing had somehow managed to stave off the worst of the rusting process, save for suspension and fuel system components, which gave the appearance of having been hung over the side of a Grimsby trawler for a quarter of a century.
‘The Honda had clearly become something of a serious project, at a time when fate dealt owner Tim a dreadful hand early in life, leaving him physically unable to plough precious energy into the car’s restoration. And so it sat, not so much on the back burner, but on the cold disconnected hob that is the province of the stalled project. That was until Team SOS realised that they were CR-Xy and they knew it and the car was soon whisked away.
‘Often with CarSOSprojects, the first open door aroma that reaches the olfactory receptors is not that of glorious leather an
