This Ordinary 1998 Civic Hatchback is the Optimal Bring a Trailer Listing
We all know Bring a Trailer is a strange place, and it’s fun to giggle at customers with lots of disposable income overpaying for odd vintage vehicles. This hyper-accelerated used-car market has only exacerbated these lapses of decision making, resulting in a curious phenomenon: people paying top-dollar for relatively clean examples of completely unremarkable vehicles. Like today’s 1998 Honda Civic DX hatchback, currently sitting at $5,500 after four bids with a week left on the block.
This EJ6 Civic certainly hails from an era when Honda was rightfully renowned as a maker of thoughtfully engineered and sensibly designed products, but the car itself doesn’t seem to be special in any way. Well, save for the fact it has heated seats, evidently installed as a dealer add-on. That’s especially funny because this is a DX model, the second from the bottom, rising above the absolute base-mode CX trim thanks to the addition of a radio.
You won’t find that original head unit in this Civic, not that you’d want it. The seller says that original radio has been preserved and comes with the car, along with an additional set of gray floor mats, which really set off the gray plastics blanketing the dash and transmission column, the gray seats and the gray steering wheel. This hatch has power locks, too, but they also appear to be an aftermarket special, as you had to vault yourself up to LX trim or higher to get power locks from the factory.
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Has a special flexible head to hit everywhere you need it to, has a variety of different functions to use to fit your preferred style, and is designed to last seven years.
Reading on, the description stands out for categorically listing the most underwhelming attributes of any vehicle I’ve ever seen on BaT. Even the front and rear tires are different brands, a fate that’s endemic to base Civic owners but comical to observe on an auction site known for breaking price records.
These are the sorts of items that could be sufficiently explained in a bulleted list, but are editorialized anyway because that’s how BaT does things. Like this passage that paints a still life of the fuel gauge:
The four-spoke steering wheel frames a 130-mph speedometer and gauges for fuel level and coolant temperature. The six-digit odometer shows 52k miles, approximately 17k of which have been added by the seller.
At least the listing provides thorough pictures of the Civic’s dings and nicks, and the seller is upfront about the rust on the front suspension. Because this car is from New Jersey. Because of course it is.
All that said, it’s still the nicest example of an EJ-generation Civic you’re likely to see, with two owners, no accidents, and a mere 52,000 miles on the odometer. That’s why it’s here. I shudder to think of how much it’ll go for, though in this car’s defense I’ll say that whatever it fetches, it’ll deserve it more than this 14,000-mile Hummer H2.
