drivetofive

Odometer (Legend):  543,029

Odometer (ILX):  160,207

Odometer (Vigor):  105,500

Feast your eyes on some “BG-30P” code paint deliciousness!  This here is a double-dose of a color that we all saw back in the 90’s that has long since been replaced by today’s boring silvers, grays, charcoals, and…. yawn.

Several weeks ago I bought a new T-shirt on blipshift.com that says “Alive With Five.”  It felt appropriate that I wear the shirt to a meet-up on Monday night with newfound friend Chris in Scottsdale, Arizona who happens to be an old-school Acura 5-cylinder fan just like me.

My friend Ryan made a snide remark about how little I will probably wear the shirt.

Bridging the gap between the Integra and the Legend, the Vigor split the difference between 4 and 6 cylinders with its 2.5-liter, 176-horsepower inline-five-cylinder motor.  I shared some history about the model when I picked up my own Vigor last July in Denver.

This middle sibling was forever overshadowed by its larger, more popular, big brother the Legend.  The Vigor enthusiast network in general was just a lot smaller.  While the Legend community has been able to support enough interest to host an annual meet every year since 2005, the Vigor club members held regional meets until about the early 2000’s and then the fire died out.  Consider the fact that there were more than ten times as many Legends sold as Vigors.

• Acura Legend sales, 1986 – 1995:  477,831 units
• Acura Vigor sales, 1992 – 1994:  43,908 units

The Acura Vigor Club was an online community started in 1998-1999, right around the time that I was spending my teenage years browsing Legend.org (still alive for archive purposes) and HondaPrelude.com (long gone).  In January 1999, a “Yahoo!” group was founded for the Acura Vigor and Legend Club.

More and more members began joining the community at acuravigorclub.com, with “Timely Topics” monthly DIY tutorials being posted by contributors and with meets being organized in select regions.  In 2005, the website hit its peak with about 100,000 total hits, including one specific day in March that had over 900 views.  Here is a (grainy, tiny, characteristic of those early days) photograph of a meet in Seattle in the early 2000s.

In the decade since, the website has become a ghost town.  Last updates were posted in 2007 but by then the Vigor model was already 13 years old and a good chunk of the Vigor fanbase had likely moved on to the wildly successful new Acuras being offered on the showroom floor, like the crowd favorite 3rd generation 2004-2008 TL.

“Chris” was one of the rare, few people who took interest in the Vigor model when it was near-new.  In 1996, he bought his car with around 25,000 miles on it.  Over the last 20 years, it’s gone from daily driver, to weekend cruiser, to pretty much sitting around all the time – now that he has 3 other vehicles and a motorcycle competing for his attention.  Thus the reason why he finally decided, at 200,400 miles on the odometer, he’s considering letting his pride and joy go to the next worthy owner.

I was impressed with the condition of his car from the moment I arrived.  It’s clearly been cared for.  A mechancial engineer by trade, he’s performed all of his own maintenance over the years – everything, in fact, except for the tire installations and balancing.  The timing belt was changed 20,000 miles (and 8 years) ago.  The radiator and battery are new, and he says he’d trust the car to drive across the country without thinking twice.

“Nice Vig,” was Chris’ comment when he saw my car.  And, I definitely return those sentiments.  We took his for a spin and it was interesting to get used to not kicking at a clutch pedal, but it idled, ran, drove, and braked as smoothly as could be – even with twice the miles that my car has on it.  Hope you enjoy seeing some of the photos of his car that I captured during my visit.

Best angle!

My own Vigor in the background.

Front end is remarkably rock-chip-free for 200,000 miles

I need that spoiler!

The 2004 BMW in the driveway is one of Chris’ newer vehicles

Extra mats in the trunk!  I need!

Cognac-colored interior has held up well, minus the driver’s seat & console lid.

Rare finds in this kind of condition.

And I happened to be passed by a 1991-92 Legend sedan whilst on my way home!

A few other bits & pieces today to catch everyone up.  Cruise on by TSXTravels.com, and say hello to my friend Josh who is now only a mere 8,000 miles away from the big 500,000 milestone on his 2005 TSX!

I got my tires ordered for the ILX.  I ended up going with Michelin Primacy 215-45-17s for $725.  They’ll be installed in early May just before the Alaska departure.  Michelin has a $70 rebate going on right now so I figured the timing was right to go ahead and get them ordered.

Check out my new cologne from Nordstrom:

My friend Jason seems to think it should smell like leather & burlwood.  No such luck!

My mom flew in last night to get her G35.  Here’s a video she captured of me pulling up to the airport to pick her up!

And she delivered a diecast model car (Chevy Nova) to my nephew for me when she arrived home with her G35 this afternoon.  My brother sent me this pic.  Love that kid!

Catch ya later!

This entry was posted on April 14, 2016 at 6:18 pm and is filed under ILX, Vigor. 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.