At $13,000, Is This 1981 Honda Prelude Solaire A Sign Of Good Times Ahead?

Solaire, the Santa Ana, California company that converted today’s Nice Price or No Dice Prelude into a drop-top called the model an “instant classic” in its promotional materials. Let’s see if this survivor’s price makes it a classic deal.

Is The Honda S2000 A Modern Classic?

Here’s a fun fact: if you turn the original Dodge Viper snakehead badge upside down, it turns into the spitting image of Daffy Duck. There was nothing daffy, though, about yesterday’s 1995 Dodge Viper R/T10. In fact, it looked to be in great condition and offered a unique color combination. At $40,000, that was enough to turn some heads and earn a respectable 75 percent Nice Price win.

A downside of the original Viper — one that was rectified with the second generation — is the convoluted and, honestly, ass-tacular top and side curtain setup that would close the cabin under the threat of inclement weather. Not that you’d want to drive any Viper in the rain — they are squirrelly enough in the dry. Still, the top provided was rudimentary at best, a throwback to caveman days and a disappointment considering that carmakers had been crafting wonderfully easy-to-use convertible tops for nearly a century by the time the Viper arrived on the scene.

There was a point in the 1970s when it seemed that convertible cars were destined to go the way of the Dodo. Proposed Federal roll-over standards implied that convertibles might be banned in the U.S., causing manufacturers to abandon the body style in droves. Those standards never came to pass, cutting the convertible a break, but it took years for car makers to bring open-top cars back into the fold. That market vacuum led to a number of coachbuilders entering the fray with coupe-turned-convertible cars to fill the fun-in-the-sun niche car buyers sorely needed.

One such company was Santa Ana, California-based Solaire Automotive Corporation, which, for a brief moment in time, crafted a convertible version of Honda’s then brand-spankin’ new Prelude coupe. Solaire did a solid enough job on the conversion for Honda to embrace the model and offer it through its dealer network with a full factory warranty. Records are sketchy, but the general consensus is that somewhere around 100 of these conversions were made before Solaire closed up shop.

This 1981 Honda Prelude Solaire is claimed to be a three-owner car and to have both a clean title and a pass from a state-certified smog tester. It wears its original blue and gold plates, something coveted by California car culture, as well as aftermarket wheels that pretty much anybody could take or leave.

The ad claims 98,000 miles on the clock and aside from the myriad of vacuum hoses on the 1751cc CVCC four, these cars end to stand up over time. That SOHC four makes 72 horsepower and 94 lb-ft of torque, enough to move the car reasonably when equipped, as this car is, with the five-speed manual.

A problem with a fuel line leak apparently vexes the car at the moment, but the seller claims to be working on a fix prior to the sale. Other issues — or benefits, depending on how you see it — include a reupholstered interior that has lost the front bucket headrests and a weird mini-antenna for the radio on the front fender.

Other than that, it all seems to be in pretty solid shape. The arrest-me red paint appears to be a respray and there is some flaking of both the brightwork on the rub strips and the paint on the wipers, but from 10 feet, that shouldn’t matter. Some sort of “Great sound system” has been installed, but the seller claims it doesn’t ruin the car’s “vintage look.” One very important part of such a low-production convertible is the top and in this car’s case, that seems to be working without issues.