Driving a Pristine, 315-Mile 1994 Honda Accord EX Coupe 32 Years Later
For the Accord’s 50th birthday, Honda handed us the keys to an astonishingly original 1994 EX Coupe much like one our author reviewed back in the day.
Happy 50th birthday, Honda Accord! To date, the Japanese automaker has moved more than 15 million Accords in the U.S., with about 13 million of that number having been built right here in America’s Heartland. In addition, several of the latest-generation Accords have been designed and developed here, as well. Many were even exported to Japan.
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To celebrate this auspicious anniversary, Honda cracked open its vintage-vehicle vault and made models from six of the first seven generations of the Accord available for test drives. Your vintage scribe—old enough to have driven all 11 Accord generations when new—chose the first one he recalls reporting on as a new car: a fifth-gen Honda Accord coupe.
New Old Stock
The brand spanking new 1994 Accord EX Coupe you see here, serial #RA000001, resplendent in Bordeaux Red Pearl, was delivered to the MotorTrend offices with an odometer reading 000315—vastly fewer miles than were on the press cars we’d have driven back in the day. Apparently, the factory squirreled this one away. Surely, it’s had oil changes, but could it even be properly “broken in”? The tires have been replaced, but we went easy on them because they’re date-stamped 2005.
My Editorial Take in 1994
My first crack at the by then 18-year-old and already vernerable Accord was in its wagon guise, at my former employer, where the staff had named the Accord to its storied 10 Best list every year except the final two years of the fourth-gen car. The ’94 had returned the Accord to the list—and it won MotorTrend’s Import Car of the Year that year, as well. But as a wagon, it offered knapsack space amid a field of six backpackers, which, along with its “smallest and least torquey motor of the bunch,” kept it from the winner’s circle. Nevertheless, we conceded that these shortcomings were more than made up for with “typical Honda quality.”
We also enthused about the dynamic handling and steering feel afforded by its rare-for-the-class fully independent control-arm front, multilink rear suspension. “Great steering on the twisty stuff, very composed at nine-tenths, but could use more aggressive tires.” Clearly, it was the most sedanlike entrant in the wagon class. We also noted that “drivers of all sizes praised the superb seating position, control relationships, and visibility out of the cockpit,” adding, “All the buttons and knobs are nicely placed and easy to reach and understand.”
My original assessment of the Accord ended with this semi-prescient observation: “The Accord goes about its business with a mild-mannered meekness that may help it inherit the earth but earned it only a third-place finish.” Indeed, half of that comparison’s nameplates are as dead today as the family-wagon segment, including the winning VW Passat.
That same year, an Accord LX took first in a sedan comparison test I participated in, winning “on pure automotive talent.” We noted: “It’s nearly the shortest of the bunch, and it has the smallest-displacement engine. But it makes the most of what it’s got—it’s the only four-cylinder that keeps pace with the V-6s when the pedals go to the metal. Yet it cleans them all in fuel economy by a clear margin, 25 mpg on our trip.”
