Vintage ’88 Honda Civic
As a young adult, my husband bought a new 1988 Honda Civic with his own money – his first big purchase. It is a “cranberry red” manual transmission car because automatic cars were about $900 more. After all these years, it is still a very reliable car with great gas mileage (26 miles to a gallon on very hilly around-town driving).
Our children have known this car all their lives. They have got used to it like you get used to the quirks of your relatives. But our children’s friends noticed that this car wasn’t like any other they know.
1988 Honda Civic
When I painfully went to open every door, one of their friends helpfully suggested, “Why don’t you click all the doors open?” ”Well, because I can’t. They didn’t make those clickers until 10 years after this car was born.”, I said to a bemused child. They also don’t have this concept of “lock your doors” as you leave the car because they expect me to do it with my remote.
In this electronic age when children think they are smarter with gadgets than their parents, another confused child asked me how to open the window. I pointed to the lever. He started to press various parts of the lever to open the window. When I showed him how to crank the lever, it was like magic to him! All the children played with the levers the whole way to school. Of course, I had to remind all the children to close the window and lock the door before they got out otherwise I’d have to laboriously close each window and door of the car.
My least favorite feature of this car is that the trunk cannot be opened from inside the car. Only the key opens it. I guess they designed it that way for security of the trunk but didn’t carpool moms complain about it? Popping the trunk from the driver’s seat is my all-time favorite feature of the newer cars especially on rainy days.
What makes driving this car difficult is that it doesn’t have power steering. Power steering didn’t come standard with the car “in those days”. Consequently, I struggle with 3 point turns, U-turns and parallel parking. To the children, I appear to be weak. ”My mom does it with no effort”, one child quipped.
The car came with an AM/FM radio and a tape deck. A tape deck has since been destroyed by a tape left inside the tape deck that melted on a really hot day. The FM has stopped working as well. It is truly a bare-bones car. When the children gripe that the car doesn’t have an iPod jack, CD player, remote clicker, my indignant retort is “That is because it is a vintage car”.
But then, when I hear them use “vintage” with something that belonged to my youth, I realize I have become my dad.
