The *555 1979 Honda Accord EL1 Hatch

[JamesHarveyGibbons]

Ahoy hoy.

I'm a back-story kinda guy, so just scroll down if you want the goods  

So when I was 16, I asked my old man if I could get a car. He said yes and asked how much I had saved up... Well, s**t.

About 6 months passed and I had been doing 3 hour shifts after school when possible making woodfired pizza bases on a foodtruck for the markets. I was almost at a grand when one day someone said I should get a hatchback as it'd be easier to park and probably more economical for getting to school etc. So one day after school, i jump on trademe, searched up hatchbacks pre 1990.. Obligatory "Lowest Price First" sort order haha, first thing that pops up "1982 Honda Accord".. 5pm, I click it, search through the photos, description, location - Everything is absolutely perfect and I didn't have the faintest clue on anything car related, Fwd & Rwd were the same thing in my books and the steering wheel changed the direction you were driving. That's it.

Here's the punchline.. This thing could have been an absolute bomb and I would have been completely oblivious. However, this thing had a fresh wof, 6 months rego, 50,000 original k's with receipts and reports proving so and... Was $700!!! Only catch being, it was in Tauranga and I was in Auckland on a learners.

My girlfriend at the time had her restricted and was far too good to me with literally everything haha, so her and my mum agreed to drive down to Tauranga and pick this baby up. Anyway, we get down there and the thing is perfect. No rust, no missing trims or damaged parts. Sure, the carpet was a little stained and there were a couple stone chips - but that was it!

Anyway, I have no idea what i'd got, years went by of being a stupid teenager and not looking after things, I leave school and acquire a bunch of buggered cars and try do them up etc, literally like 14 or 15 of them, buy em, fondle them, sell em and so on. Long story short, this thing gets in a couple accidents, gets taken to bits, rusts a bit, gets stuck in a beach, has the ol' put the back wheels on maccas trays treatments - Again. I was a textbook pleb with it.

I get to about 22 y/o, my taste in automotive had drastically grown and matured, I move back in with my old man after about 4 years of flatting and this thing sitting on the road in the rain etc. I sit in it one day, looking around at the instruments on the dash, the odo reads 80,000.. Man, 30,000 k's in this thing and i'd only had to replace two front tyres and service it. That day I decided this thing had just too much in it for me to sell it on or let it get any worse. I decided this was going to be something I could have until i'm old and crippled.

So this all starts around late 2014, didn't really document the dates, just kinda remember roughly how the timeline went, pictures to follow...