drivetofive

Odometer:  505,043

I know I’m not the only Acura fanatic out there who gets this burning desire to adopt every “sad” old Acura that crosses his/her path.  My friend Alan, as you all saw in a recent post, calls his home in Florida a haven for “wayward Legends” – having bought and restored a number of Legends to their former glory.  Today at work I glanced quickly at the local craigslist selection and stumbled across a candidate for one such restoration.  This is an extremely rare 1993 L model 6-speed manual coupe, finished in Milano Red exterior with an Ivory interior.

It happened to be located just a couple of blocks from my office – and right on my way home – so I figured I’d take a look just for fun.  What a lesson in car care I learned.  What may have been at one time a very nicely kept Legend coupe has been beat up, weathered out, and driven hard.  To the seller’s credit, he’s only asking $1,250 and the car’s potentially worth that in just spare parts.  But this 268,628 mile Acura is a fixer-upper to say the least.  Still, I can’t help but look at it with a “puppy in the pound” mentality.  What some elbow grease and TLC would do for this car…

Not too bad from this angle.  South Carolina car originally but has some rust on the right rear wheel well.

Still looking okay here – that red might look good with a buff & a wax.

But… wait for it…

Somebody appears to have turned a bear loose in the cockpit!

From a cosmetic perspective, things kept going downhill from there.

A replaced engine in 2005 has kept this old Legend on the road, but my quick lap around the parking lot left me feeling afraid to drive it any farther than that.  It might make a fun project car if I had the time, money, and know-how.  If anyone wants an old 6-speed Legend for cheap, let me know and I’ll put you in touch with this guy.  And please, Acura drivers of the world, don’t ever let a bear get ahold of your leather seats.

From there, I drove the rest of the way home in my 1994 LS with nearly twice the miles and snapped a few pictures for comparison’s sake.  I’ll no longer complain about my rock chipped front bumper, fading clearcoat, and miniature door dings.

This week, the coupe will go in for an oil change, fresh manual transmission fluid, a new battery, and some work to the front suspension.  It continues to get me faithfully to work each day.  Still anxiously looking forward to my travel to Detroit this upcoming weekend to see what Acura and the other auto manufacturers have up their sleeves for 2012 and beyond.  Stay tuned as I bring you a full report!

This entry was posted on January 3, 2012 at 1:11 am and is filed under Legend. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.