Someone really dropped close to $19,000 for a 30-year-old Civic with, at best, 145 HP to the front wheels.
If you couldn’t already tell, that preview above is sarcastic because, as you already know, the era of Rad cars led by Golden Era Hondas is here. As per JDM car importer and reseller Samurai Auto Japan US Military Base Edition it looks like this Grade 3 1989 Honda Civic SiR II EF9 sold for a crazy $18,800.
Check out their post below.
Grade 3 is a scale out of six with 6 being the best and 1 being the worst. According to JapaneseCarTrade.com, 3 basically means “Lots of repair work needed or high mileage.”
This Civic only has 15,340 miles when you convert from km so, while that’s still not exactly mint, for an EF9 Civic that’s stupid low mileage.
This EF9’s definitely been moded but the mods are tasteful. Since it’s from Japan, it’s all quality parts. The Wheels are OG Rays Volk Racing wheels in tasteful white. The exhaust is a Kakimoto, a sought after exhaust here in the states.
Even the color, Barcelona Green Pearl is an uncommon choice.
Although they’ve given this EF9 a Grade 3, the interior looks absolutely mint as far as I can tell. The steering wheel isn’t original but it’s a Nardi 3-spoke, something a tasteful car enthusiast would switch out the original steering wheel for.
EF9 Civic’s are special. This is one of the first years Honda really got serious with its “Straight from F1” performance. Like F1 cars, these Civic are among the first to introduce a simple yet effective double wishbone suspension around all four corners, great for racing.
Under the hood wasn’t a SOHC four-cylinder like the next most powerful Civic Si, this was the mighty first gen B16A engine colloquially referred to as “Integra’d” sharing the same engine from the Integra XSi. Max power was a, at the time, a whopping 160 HP and 111 lb-ft. Peak power came on after VTEC at 7,600 RPM and the engine still had hundreds of revs to give up to a 8,000 RPM redline.
Paired to the engine was a slick shifting 5-speed with optional LSD.
And keep in mind that the final price, if it’s a foreign shopper, doesn’t even include shipping, taxes, fees, registration etc.
So, while this Civic is arguably a grocery getter with a hotted up engine, it’s so much more.
Can you imagine if this EF9 was unmodded, how much it would sell for? Let me know your .02 on this one-of-a-kind auction below.
