CurtThere’s something quietly radical about driving a thirty-five-year-old Honda Civic through the backstreets and ring roads of Melbourne and feeling, genuinely, like you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. That’s what owning an old tin-can Honda does to you.
A “golden-era” Honda doesn’t really share the same give-and-take relationship like most modern cars do. It doesn’t give you horsepower or creature comforts. It asks for a commitment, however, if you commit, the enjoyment is unreal. I guess it is cult-like huh?
Long before it found its way into pop culture, kanjo racing was a religion practiced on the Kanjo Loop, the elevated ring of expressways encircling Osaka. In the dead of night, drivers in stripped and livery-ridden “golden-era” Honda Civics (and sometimes other cars too, yes) would push each other through on-ramps and off-ramps, racing to defy authority and for the sheer mechanical joy of a high-revving VTEC engine singing between concrete barriers. It was illegal, it was dangerous, and it became one of the most aesthetically iconic subcultures in automotive history.
What grew out of those Osaka expressways eventually reached everywhere that petrol-heads speak Honda, and Melbourne is no different. A few years ago my friend Jon gently introduced me to Civic ownership by allowing me to take his pride and joy ED Civic to Winton Raceway for a Nugget Nationals track day.
I put not one, but two holes in the block after just 2 sessions.
So, of course, I ended up buying an ED Civic of my own.
Queue, Kanashimi Racing. Our little shrine to the Honda gods.
Eventually, we put a new motor in Jon’s car but hadn’t had the opportunity to get them together for a few pics, until now!
These are two very different, but still quite similar, interpretations of how we modified our ED/EF Civics.
Keep an eye on this space for more Honda-related shenanigans from Jon and I…
Or, you can follow us at Kanashimiracing