Bring a Trailer

Supa clean example....Prob will go for more. I see ratty ones with 100k miles going for $30k all day.
 
1738605087528.png

bringatrailer.com

1990 Honda CRX Si 5-Speed

Bid for the chance to own a 1990 Honda CRX Si 5-Speed at auction with Bring a Trailer, the home of the best vintage and classic cars online. Lot #76,249.
bringatrailer.com bringatrailer.com
 
webby said:
600hp manual trans e46 for 20k???
Click to expand...
It will go for way more than that but it's one of those cars where stock fetches more cash monies....

I believe I saw a sale listing for a 20k miles, completely stock.....$85,000
 
Not BaT, but this guy is asking BaT prices:

https://www.facebook.com/share/19qBtQupUg/

I know this is not a Civic, nor even a Honda product; however, there is a lot of 'lore' behind this car. The Mitsubishi 3000GT Spyder was made under agreement between Mitsubishi and ASC (American Sunroof Company) in CA in the '90s. ASC, originally planning to partner with Nissan, built a 300ZX Spyder (I've seen this one sell on eBay once many years ago) but the deal fell apart in 1992. So, ASC shifted to a partnership with Mitsubishi which did go through. However, the 3000GT Spyder was only produced between 1995 and 1996; so, it calls into question into the legitimacy of this 1992 Spyder VR-4. Here are some working theories on this car (NOTE: some of these are my own home-brewed ideas, some are based on talking with others in the 30000GT/Stealth (3/S) community, and I honestly have no idea what the real answer is, but this car pops up for sale semi-regularly and almost never changes hands - mostly due to that insane asking price):

1) This car was the actual test bed prototype car between Mitsubishi and ASC. However, when you run the VIN (JA3XE74C9NY067393 - digit 5 (E in this case) marks it as a coupe; a Spyder VIN has either V (FWD) or X (AWD) for the 5th digit), it comes back as a coupe. I think that ASC approached Mitsubishi with the idea in 1992 after the deal fell apart with Nissan and Mitsubishi liked it enough to give them a 1992 model to test fit the top mechanism (or, ASC, with the intention of approaching Mitsubishi, bought a 1992 model preemptively for their test case), build molds, wiring, develop the plans for conversion, and what ever else needed to be done to complete the Spyder concept. However, this R&D took a couple years, and even with the redesign in 1994, the shell and affected body panels of the car were relatively unchanged, allowing the concept to carry forward with the agreement in 1995.

2) This car is actually a 1995 or 1996 model car but has been converted to appear as a 1992 model (rear bumper, front bumper, side skirts, headlights, headlight buckets, interior (dash, steering wheel, radio controls, gear selector), ECU, transmission, transfer case, driveshaft, rear diff, etc.) were all changed over to be an 'authentic' 1992 car and a VIN swap was done to match the 1992 donor car.

3) This car is the merger of two cars potentially as a result of accidents. The front half of a 1992 model was spliced onto the rear of a 1995/1996 Spyder to build an authentic looking 1992 Spyder VR-4 and it retained the 1992 car's VIN to keep it with the overall appearance of the car (and perhaps sell it as a prototype).

Again, this is all speculation on my part; I have not seen this car in person. But, it is just odd enough, and there is just enough information missing, that it makes one curious. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, this car has never been in the possession of a 3/S enthusiast such as myself (or, one of a number of other friends of mine). But, it would be interesting to see it in person and look at what could be determined based on an actual inspection of the car. I still lean towards Theory 1 as when the Spyders actually went into official production, they were built as coupes at the plant in the Nagoya, Japan like all other 3/S cars, given a different VIN code to mark them as Spyders, then they were shipped to ASC in CA without a hatch and a few other bits to prep them for the conversion. ASC disassembled the cars, modified them for the Spyder, and returned them to Mitsubishi for sale to their dealer network. The Spyder conversion was completed in about 6wks, per car, if I remember correctly (definitely not enough time to develop the top mechanism, chassis reinforcements that were added, design the antenna rerouting, and what not); which, I think provides legitimacy to the 1992 prototype possibility. However, others in the community, who I think have seen this car in person, said that as they looked at it, it seemed sketchy with paperwork not making sense and other things that made them leery of the car. Still, I think if this was a legitimate prototype, that would still hold true; but, that could also be me just saying what I want to hear such that the thought of this car is real and makes sense. Unfortunately, ASC rebranded in 2017 as American Specialty Cars and released all of its previous workforce; so, those with knowledge would likely be hard to track down and I doubt the new ASC would respond to queries regarding a 33yr old car from its previous business structure and records (if they even exist). So, we may never know.

Anyhow, just thought you'd all find it a bit interesting. If you'd like to know more about the 3/S platform (since this is a Civic forum, I doubt that is the case and would wish I'd just stop typing about it), just hit me up anytime. :)


EDIT: To keep this somewhat a legitimate post, this car did just pop up on BaT:
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1...78IzrnrIzu5gEkALnA_aem_GHOcBBHLDW3t8alNprMO1Q
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top