April | 2020 | drivetofive

Archive for April, 2020

1999 GS-R & 2000 RL Walkarounds, TBT Home Videos, & Garage Signage

Posted in House, Integra, Legend, Milestones, NALM, Prelude, RL, Throwback on April 23, 2020 by tysonhugie

Odometer (Legend coupe): 573,000

That took me long enough. The Legend coupe was at 572,XXX ever since getting back from Florida last October. I was getting sick of that 2 staring me in the face. I’ve been plugging away over here in my director chair coming up with content for YouTube.

Except, I don’t just occupy a director chair. For a total of 9 episodes now, I’ve taken each car in the collection and cleaned it, prepared supporting documentation, filmed it, edited the footage, and uploaded it. I’ve scheduled releases through the beginning of June, each Saturday. That was a lot of work but it’s also been super rewarding.

The Legend video has made it into 2 news articles (Motor1 and Carscoops) and even an article in Germany. As I type this on Wednesday April 22nd, the view count has surpassed 120,000 in just the 3 weeks it’s been live.

Here are two more uploads exclusive to the blog since they won’t be public on the channel for a while.

Integra SSBP GS-R Video

RL Video

I also took a little bit of time to put together a summary video of the 15-year history of the National Acura Legend Meet. This 5-minute piece captures select highlights from each year of the event starting in 2005.

The other day, I was rummaging through my case of printed car pics. Back in the day, I used to have all my media printed up at Walmart. I have hundreds of photos in plastic organizers, split out with dividers according to model, month, and year. This shouldn’t surprise any of you. But I came across a couple of photos from 2004 of my 1989 Prelude Si – the first Honda that really got me hooked – and it prompted me to do a little more digging.

These pictures show my friend Branson holding a camcorder and recording the scene. We were looking at my then-wrecked (former) Prelude at a salvage yard in St. George, Utah. We just happened across the car coincidentally. I’d sold it about four years prior, and the new owner was rear-ended which ultimately was the demise of the car. To this day I still have the rear “H” emblem off the trunk lid in my display case at home.

Anyway, I was determined to find the footage that Branson filmed that day. And I did. Below is a video showing the scene. It opens up to October 30, 2004 when he and I were swapping wheels on a newly-purchased $700 project car, a 1991 Legend L coupe 5-speed, that I’d purchased from my friend Mike to use as a “winter beater” while I was going to school at Utah State University in Logan, Utah.

The video then cuts to Branson’s footage of the Prelude. Next it takes you through some other things like me attempting to start detailing that $700 pile of junk. Some things never change.

Below is another video from the same “Hi8” cassette tape that I found interesting. It contains test drives of my 1986 Chevy Celebrity with 194,000 miles (displayed as 94,000) when I bought the car back for a brief moment of time in spring 2005. It also has a clip of driving the Legend coupe. It had about 165,000 miles on it at the time and as you’ll notice, it had the “TCS” (Traction Control System) light in the gauge cluster illuminated. I remember that being because of a faulty TCS Control Unit, which was fixed later in September of that year.

Perhaps most interesting from this video though is that it has a brief walkaround of the 2000 Acura 3.5 RL, which I ended up buying back earlier this year after it had been passed around the family for 14 years. The RL at the time of the video clip had only 23,880 miles on it.

Today, it has about 212,000. Thankfully, it looks about the same cosmetically with the exception of now having the factory 16″ wheels on it instead of those awful aftermarket chrome 17’s. You’ll also get introduced to our family cat, Gizmo, who is long gone.

Video quality has come a very long time over the last 15 years, hasn’t it?

I’ve crossed a few more home-improvement projects off the list in the last couple of weeks, including something I’d been meaning to do for a while. Below you’ll see the last addition to the garage: A sign for my (pretend) dealership. The lettering is made from 3D foam from a company in LA called Front Signs. I told them the design I had in mind, supplied the artwork, and they mailed me a box with everything I needed including the template to get everything installed in proper alignment.

The letters came in plain black so they needed to be primed, painted, and clear coated. The whole process took a couple of weeks because I ordered all the supplies online as opposed to breaking my quarantine and going to the hardware store. Additionally, the lamp you see there was ordered on Amazon and I had to run the power cord through the garage cabinet in order to get it wired up and working.

Here’s how it played out in a 1-minute video.

The next garage to get more work will be the ‘west’ garage which is begging for some custom flooring and paint. All in due time.

A friend tipped me off on an article that showed up in the February 2020 Japanese magazine called Honda Style. The magazine reads “backwards,” in other words, the pages flip from left to right instead of right to left. The SH-AWD 1997 SLX that was part of last year’s RADwood build made a 3-page article! I ordered 2 copies of the mag and sent one of them to the Public Relations team at Acura.

Lastly, a friend in Seattle hooked me up with an ‘actual’ 1992 GS-R window sticker, although it’s missing a chunk. This helps as a point of reference either way, especially when coupled with the replica that Jason helped me with a couple of years ago.

Hope everyone is having a safe and enjoyable week out there. Take care.

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‘Homemade’ Film Festival (6 Videos) & Other Random Projects

Posted in Detailing, ILX, Integra, Legend, NSX, SLX, Vigor on April 14, 2020 by tysonhugie

Odometer (ILX): 223,692

Checking in on all of you out there! Let me know how you’re doing.

I’ve been productive around here playing Steven Spielberg when I’m not tied up in work meetings from home. Get your popcorn ready. Actually, make a couple of batches while you’re at it. If you’re in the mood for a movie marathon at some point, here are some selections I cooked up, with walkarounds for some of my cars.

Most are still ‘unlisted’ and will debut on my public YouTube channel on the dates indicated (subject to change!). You’re welcome to wait and just watch them then!

ILX Detail – Public

1992 Integra – Public

NSX – Premieres April 18

Legend Sedan – Premieres April 25

SLX – Premieres May 2

Vigor – Premieres May 9

The RL has not yet been shot but I’m prepping the car over the next couple of days.

Here are a few ‘beauty shots’ taken at the time of each film shoot.

I had the Vigor console out the other day in order to get the serial number so I could track down the radio anti-theft code.

Used the SLX to haul some firewood.

Did a bumper light restore on the 1992 GS-R.

Dug through some magazine articles to archive more stuff.

Adopted a friend’s modified 1995 NSX for a few days while he refinished his garage floor.

Received a massive Easter egg delivery from family in Utah.

Hung up some art work in the ‘ugly’ one-car garage that usually gets no attention.

And detailed my mower, topped off with an “A” emblem on the motor.

This morning’s work teleconferences started off with an Acura wine glass of iced coffee.

As you can see, I’m staying plenty entertained here.

What have you been up to?

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Quarantine Log: Desk Inventory, Legend Literature Download, Scrapbook Excerpts

Posted in Blog, House, Integra, Maintenance, Vigor on April 1, 2020 by tysonhugie

Odometer (Vigor): 114,933

Day “I don’t know.” It’s Groundhog Day around here, and I feel like Bill Murray hitting the snooze button on the alarm each day wondering if something will be different. Well, a few things have been different. There’s a lot less traffic whizzing by on the street outside. Solitude and seclusion are the norm – and will continue to be for another 4 weeks at least, since as of yesterday evening the state of Arizona is on a ‘formal’ lockdown of non-essential travel.

So my cars will sit but my mind and body will keep moving as best they’re able to. The good news is that I’ve found miraculous ways to keep busy. What started out as organizing my top desk drawer for the first time in about 5 years ended up in complete, comprehensive Spring Cleaning that purged 3 huge boxes of stuff from my closets.

And like any analytical person would insist on doing, I took inventory of what was inside my desk drawer so I could share it with you all. I know, seriously. Has quarantine gotten to me that badly? Here you go.

Desk Inventory March 2020:

19 pens

18 sharpie markers

2 scotch tapes

2 sheets of stamps

3 calculators

3 hole punches

4 post-it pads

5 highlighters

7 checkbooks

8 chap sticks

8 flashlights

9 mechanical pencils

9 USB drives / storage mediums

binder clips box

box of business cards

extra go pro battery

notepad

paper clips box

pocketknife

ruler

safety pins box

scissors

staple remover

stapler

thumb tacks box

I don’t know why I needed that many flashlights. I don’t even think I need a single one. My phone has that built-in. Same with the calculators. Man, how stuff has just become obsolete overnight!

Thanks in large part to the Legend video that I shared with you all on the last blog post (17,000 views and counting in the last 4 days), I will likely be hitting 6,000 subscribers sometime tonight. It’s hard to believe, but I only had 4,000 around the first of the year. So a 2,000 subscriber bump in just the first quarter of 2020? I’ll ride that wave as long as it’ll carry me. I think I can attribute some of the traffic to the fact that I’ve been diligent about publishing a video about once per week consistently. Here’s my channel if you aren’t already subscribed.

Since Throwback Thursday starts in a couple of hours, here are some photos of a 1996 scrapbook that I unearthed out of a box the other day while looking for something else. This Chrismasy-colored page has to do with when my mom bought a 1990 Integra GS sedan – the car, in a sense, that started my entire Acura-ddiction.

Here’s a page where I listed out my “Dream Cars” at age 15. The Ford Expedition had just come out, so I loved that. A few oddballs are on the list including a Toyota Camry. And I had a lot of domestic cars, and only 1 German. The photo at the bottom of the page is me with my great-aunt’s 1993 Grand Cherokee Limited that we used to detail for her. I loved that 5.2L V8.

Another oldie, this shot of me being picked up from middle school. I can tell my mom was driving the red Integra when she took this. Also, was I wearing socks with sandles? Let’s bring that style back in 2021.

When was the last time you saw an Acura Legend advertised “under factory warranty”? Funny thing about this ad clipping that I saved: Just a couple of weeks ago, a Legend coupe sold for $25,800. So would you say that Legend prices have come back to 1996 levels after being discontinued for 25 years?

Before our lockdown hit, I took the chance to get the Vigor out for fresh air and deliver something to my former roommate James who bought a place of his own. This skeleton was part of our Halloween decor for the last couple of years. I got a lot of odd looks from people while I drove him to his new place. Seat belted in, of course.

One of the projects I’d been wanting to do for a contribution to the Acura Legend enthusiast community was to assemble a comprehensive media archive of all available / known magazine articles on the car. It took about 20 years to collect all the magazines that I needed (and a still probably missed a few). But, the result was worth the effort and I ended up with a massive library that came out to:

47 articles encompassing both generations 1 and 2
247 pages of material
150 megabytes of info

PDF download link is here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1sWMbabCdCIVe9bt3Z9OLU-NX-SVQmWv7

And here’s the list of what all is in that, if you want to click & read. Mark, I’m completely ashamed that I forgot to include “High Mileage Heroes” in the mix! I had it in a special / separate drawer and spaced it. Next volume.

Catching up on maintenance – again, before we were chained to our homes. Vigor first (it had been 13 months since an oil change, yikes).

And green GS-R, which only saw a few hundred miles last year, I think.

You all saw my drive-thru window (AKA my bedroom window) on my last blog post. Well, I think I took things a step too far. I found a $28 ‘open sign’ kit on Amazon and ordered it. Here, we have the open sign, business hours, and a “closed” sign if I need it. Yes, I put my work attire and badge on for this.

I think it’s also the first time I’ve done my hair in 2.5 weeks. A friend commented on my instagram post about this, “You’re doing it all wrong. Working from home doesn’t require wearing pants.” He has a good point, but this isn’t that kind of blog. We are a family friendly environment over here at Drive to Five.

Last bit of news, I have to give a shout-out to David in Florida who bought my old Integra sedan. He sent me this picture this week – the car safely tucked away! He rolled 75,000 miles on his drive to Florida earlier this year.