Nostalgia is a Funny Thing…

Last week, a 1987 Honda Prelude Si 5-speed in essentially showroom condition and with hardly more than delivery miles (a tad over 4,200) sold on the Bring a Trailer auction platform for 79,000 2023 American dollars, plus 5% buyer’s premium. By the buyer’s own admission:

“I bought one new in 1986 and absolutely LOVED it!!! I have been actively looking for one like this for about 20 years now and this one was it!!!”

Here at Totally That Stupid we have long held the belief that nostalgia – automotively speaking – is a funny thing. I mean, sure, you could apply the same philosophy to ex-partners, former jobs, places you used to live, and so on. But for our purposes we’re talking cars. The basic meaning behind what has become a TTS battle cry motto of sorts is that the great cars of our yesteryears struggle to live up to our fond memories. Of course, your mileage may vary.

I actually speak from experience here – repeated experience, if I’m honest. I bought a 1985 Honda Prelude in winter 1991 and drove it until spring 1995. That car saw me through completion of college, meeting and courting my future wife, countless trips between central Connecticut and Northern Virginia, and about 120,000 miles. Heck, I only sold it because it was kind of tired and I got a job that meant I could afford something newer and better. I bought a 1988 Acura Legend Coupe which, with a manual transmission, was a slightly larger Prelude for adults. But I digress.

JBB adds: I bought a red-on-black 1985 Prelude about a year after Reed bought his gray example. I put 150,000 miles on it over 10 years. Good car. GREAT car. I don’t miss it.

Fast forward 11 years, and I spotted the grey Prelude pictured here for sale on the internet in Wichita, Kansas. It had only about 70,000 miles and – apart from a weird cupholder on the dashboard – was the spitting image of my Little Honda That Could (TM) from the good old days, except so much nicer! The asking price was $4,500, which was a small fortune for a used second-generation Prelude in the mid-aughts. But it spoke to me. It was the prime of my youth wrapped neatly in a little grey package!

When the car first arrived in Virginia, I was beside myself thrilled! It was everything that my old ‘Lude was when I first got it, but decidedly wasn’t by the time that first car went away. The original paint was glorious, the frame and body were without rust, the seats still had their bolsters. No stuttering on startup because the dual carbs weren’t worn out. I slid in and it was everything I remembered and, for a brief moment, I was 21 again. A very brief moment, because Nostalgia is a Funny Thing (also TM).

As I eased the clutch out and started rowing what remains one of the best manual transmissions ever, something was off. It smelled the same, sounded the same, even drove the same. Wait. That was it! It WAS the same!

And not in a good way. You see, in the years between my first and second Preludes I’d had a lot of cars. Frankly, many better built, more powerful cars. In 1991, a 1985 Prelude DX wasn’t fast or really even quick. It was, at best, peppy.

With the benefit of time, experience, and cars like that aforementioned Acura with its V6, big-six BMWs, V8 Mercedes, and a host of other stuff, it became apparent very quickly that “peppy” wasn’t something that was going to be very satisfying on a regular basis. I kept it for a few months, but sold it on in pretty short order.

JBB adds: I drove this car during the brief time Reed had it. Granted, my drive was with three people aboard in deep suburbia and the air conditioning running full-tilt, which absolutely effects performance on a second-generation Prelude. Still, even with (or probably because of) these caveats, I found it… lacking. It was nostalgic, certainly, but in a way that felt more like a hairy backhand smacking the rose-tinted 20/20 hindsight glasses clean off your face. And not in a good way. 

But I’m admittedly a slow learner. Fast-forward a few years to 2009, and I was perusing the AlfaBB forum and came across this gem: a 1978 Alfa Romeo Spider in Verde Ingles with tan interior. It only had 18,000 (!) miles and apart from a couple small paint issues looked for all intents and purposes like a new old Alfa Spider. Moreover, it was nearly the twin of my high school car.

If you’ve been a TTS reader for a while, you’ve probably read me wax poetic about my green Alfa. It was a brilliant first car, but sadly succumbed to the dreaded tinworm. At least I assume it did. It was rusty from the middle down, and we sold it to a guy with an Italian car shop who was basically going to strip the good parts out of it. Anyway, here was my high school car, but like new. I was in a place in life where we could afford a fun car on the side, so decided both that life was short and to just to it (and against my TTS partner Jonathan’s reminder of the Prelude and that nostalgia battle cry motto).

JBB adds: “I told you not to be stupid, you moron.”

It was a disaster. Having sat around for a lot of years barely being driven meant that everything rubber was iffy. On top of that, it had been living in the Denver, Colorado area which seemed to be good for the mediocre Italian steel but bad for the Spica fuel injection system which had compensators for things like altitude. I tried with this car – I really did. My dad and I kept trying to take it to the local Cars and Coffee and I don’t recall if we ever actually made it there and back without some degree of drama. I finally gave up on the fuel injection and installed a brand-new set of dual Weber carburetors, which still weren’t 100%. And on top of that, the handling was a little squirrelly and it was kind of slow. Remember the Prelude story? Well the Prelude was quicker than the Alfa, so you do the math. Lesson learned? Well…

Another 5 or 6 years later I did it again. “It’ll be different this time,” I thought. “This is a happier car than the last one,” I rationalized. And it was – to a point. The Series 3 red car you see here was indeed a better car than the Series 2 green car, thanks mainly to its reliable Bosch fuel-injection system. In truth, my original Alfa with the Spica was just as reliable, but that car was well-sorted from the get-go. The second car wasn’t. The S3 was leagues more drivable than its predecessor, but by 2014 it was a pretty old car based on a very old (try early 1960s) design.

Having owned a handful of Miatas in between and among the Alfas, I can tell you they are better in just about every way for my purpose: regular use, tossing them around the twisty-turny backroads without a care in the world, and the ability to throw the top up and hit the AC button on a steamy Virginia summer day. The Alfas, on the other hand, are just more fragile. Part of the nostalgia phenomenon is understanding that even the best, lowest-mileage car of my youth is now a really old car. Aging sucks.

Speaking of Miatas, that’s another long and winding trip down memory lane for me. If I’m recalling correctly, I’ve drunk from that well no less than four times. Two green ones and two red ones followed the original black roadster that brought my wife to the church on our wedding day.

In this case, I wasn’t surprised by lack of power or thinking the cars were anything more than they were. Rather, the problem was repeatedly that none of them was our wedding car – that first happy Miata. We sold that car to my in-laws a year or two after we got married and they kept it, and it’s actually still around. In a (not so) funny turn of events, as I write this we once again hold title to that car. If we ever get it back from the shop that has been installing a replacement engine in it for the past 4.5 years, I’ll let y’all know. That will be an interesting nostalgia story of its own.

JBB adds: I bought a black-on-red 1993 Miata LE somewhere in the middle of all of Reed’s Miatas. We didn’t have it more than a couple years. Never test-drive a Miata being sold by an adorable couple in the Santa Cruz mountains on a beautiful summer day, a couple who insist you take the car to a local wine bar for lunch. Because for better or worse, you’ll buy said Miata. Good car, but not really a great example of a Miata. I don’t miss it.

Understand this: I’m not here to poo-poo anyone’s purchase decisions or nostalgic fancies, but maybe to just help you go in eyes wide open. There have been several cars from my past that I went back to if for no other reason than to scratch an itch. I took my driver’s test on my mom’s (ex-Benny Goodman) 1981 Mercedes 300SD. To this day, the OM617a inline 5-cylinder is one of my favorite engines and – frankly – favorite automotive sounds. It’s torquey, efficient, and soothing. I’ve had a number of Mercs with that motor, and will probably have more (if prices ever level out). Like so many cars these days, prices even for middling examples have gone nuts. Are there still bargains out there? Should I just get my head around paying more? Should I just buy a new Camry? Wait: scratch that last one.

JBB adds: I can’t come up with any cars from my past I would spend what I consider Extremely Stupid Money (also TM) on, even if I were in the position. I agree with absolutely not poo-pooing anyone’s decision to indulge in expensive nostalgia. But I can’t come up with anything I’d drop close to eighty-large on. A Datsun 510 wagon? Nope. A Volkswagen Karmann Ghia convertible? Nope. A BMW Bavaria? Double-triple nope.

Eh, maybe a Bavaria. Just not that one.

But a brief conversation with my wife just this past weekend on this topic brought to light she would indeed spend ESM on a 1963 Chevrolet Impala like her Dad’s. It was a one-owner, non-SS, white-on-blue coupe with a 327 pushing power through a two-speed Powerglide. “I never knew the car when it was new, and I’d want to experience that.”

Well, okay then…

To be honest, I do love those old Mercs – even moreso since my parents are gone. But maybe my favorite nostalgic buy to date was a 1971 Fiat 850 Spider. If you listen to our most recent podcast you’ll hear Jonathan and me talk about our dads and their Fiat 850s – owning them and wrenching on them most weekends with the two of us engaged in the stationary garage grand prix. I was fortunate enough to have found this car well before my dad passed away, and got to enjoy it with him. Well, “enjoy” is probably the wrong word. I got to work on it with him since he knew what he was doing, up to and including transplanting an engine from a parts car into this one after it threw a piston. New memories on top of old, to be sure. Good nostalgia, but the car still went away since my wife refused to ride in it any more. But that’s a story for a different article.

So what about it? Was the 1987 Prelude Si guy on BaT right to spend all the money? The obvious and frequent argument in favor of a move like that is, “Go find another one. They don’t exist.” On top of that, if nostalgia indeed turns out to be a funny thing for you after you’ve made the purchase, at least on an auction platform like this one you know there was one other buyer at a minimum *on that day* nearly as willing as you to pay all the money. You may be able to get most, if not all, of your money back out of it.

On the other hand, maybe it was a fluke. Maybe you were both drunk-bidding against each other. Now you have the most expensive Prelude – or whatever your nostalgic car of choice is – and you will just have to take the hit if you decide to sell it. Nostalgia blah blah, funny thing blah, blah….

Many cars that get bid into the stratosphere have large followings. Think AMG Mercedes, BMW E30 M3s, every air-cooled Porsche 911 ever, etc. However, other cars like this Prelude have pretty thin audiences of folks who 1) want them badly enough and 2) can afford to pay whatever it takes to park them in their garage.

If you’re going to spend all the money, I think the key question is: How long do you want to own it? If you’re scratching a nostalgic itch you’ll likely be better-served to buy a nice example for less than half as much as a showroom new garage queen and enjoy it. If money is no object and/or you’re populating your museum with the best example(s) you can find, by all means spend the ESM. Just keep in mind that every owner and every.single.mile will diminish the value – probably in four- or five-figure increments.

At the end of the day, it’s your money, so do what makes you happy. Lord knows I’ll do it again.. and probably again after that. Nostalgia truly is a funny thing.

JBB adds: As Martin Blank so perfectly remarked in Grosse Pointe Blank: “You can never go home again, but I guess you can shop there.”