At $8,000, Will This 1995 Acura Legend Prove a Legendary Deal?
While today’s Nice Price or No Dice Acura may have over 200K on the clock, the seller assures us that those were all New Jersey Highway miles. Let’s see if this cool coupe’s price has you wanting to hit the highway.
According to its ad, the 1979 Chevy Corvette we looked at yesterday won’t be hitting the highway any time soon. At least not until someone puts some sweat equity into the car, fixing all that is wrong with it. From the looks of it in the ad and the seller’s somewhat vague description of the car’s needs, there was a bit of a dust-up in the comments when it came to the car’s $5,500 asking price. A few of you felt that was too much to ask considering all the unknowns, while others figured that as an old Corvette it would be as simple as a pimple to wrench back to health. In the end, the worriers won out and the Corvette lost in a narrow 52 percent No Dice vote.
One thing about yesterday’s Corvette about which I expect we are all in aggreement on is that its “Arrest-Me Red” paint scheme proved appropriately cool for the sports car. I wonder, however, if so extrovert a hue will have a similar effect when applied to a more sedate grand touring coupe such as this 1995 Acura Legend.
Acura’s Legend offers a cautionary tale about model line monkeying and the abandonment of a working nameplate. When Honda introduced the upscale Acura brand in the late 1980s, the classy Legend immediatelty became the torchbearer for the marque. So popular waas it that at times it bested its Mercedes, BMW, and Lexus competitors in sales. As time went on, the Legend nameplate gained stronger market recognition than that of parent Acura, a situation that bode poorly for the company and its lower-market models.
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In what is now seen as a pretty dumb move, Honda replaced the Legend name in 1998 with the alphabetical jumble RL. The company followed the same track for the rest of Acura’s line, making the models almost indistinguishable from one another and arguably kneecapping sales for the next two decades.
In hindsight, it’s obvious that the Legend nameplate should have been leveraged across both existing sedan and coupe models as well as for the burgeoning crossover market where it could have served in place of the nondescript MDX name. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.
Regardless, this Acura is still a Legend and at 223,000 miles and counting, it’s pretty much lived up to that name. The car seemingly hasn’t been neglected along the way either. The ad notes a slew of maintenance work and updates, including, most notably, a recent timing belt replacement on the 230-horsepower 3.2-liter C32A1 V6.
Oddly for a Honda, that all-alloy engine sits longitudinally in the engine bay despite the car being FWD. That’s a nod to its RWD competitors and it does shorten the shift linkage for the six-speed manual since it sits in the tunnel almost just below the lever. The seller claims that everything on the car works as it should, and considering all the parts that have been replaced, it very well ought to. The only fly in the ointment here is the seller’s note of some clutch chatter that they ascribe to the throwout bearing. A clutch job should be considered a honeydew list item for any new owner.
Another thing to add to that list is the replacement of the driver’s seat. Or at least its upholstery. While most of the rest of the interior seems to have held up well, that throne is beat all to hell and shows the sacrifice to the mileage gods this car has offered.
The exterior looks to be in very nice shape, wearing the aforementioned red paint and a set of BBS baskets that the seller says were recently changed from gold to silver. JDM lights lead the way and fit the U.S. spec car without issue. You might take issue with the window visors, which apparently are a thing in Japan, but look a bit weird here. The title is clean and the seller is willing to ship the car for any serious buyer. I’m not too sure how big an incentive that actually is considering that the seller doesn’t seem to be offering to pay for that shipping, only to hand the keys to the surly transport driver.
Should anyone wish to just saunter up and kick its tires, the asking price on the Acura is $8,000. What do you think, does that seem fair considering the car’s condition and spec? Or, is that a price so high that it will go down in history?
You decide!
New York City, New York, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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