Schaefft's Bargain Barge Extravaganza - New Legendary Honda and Abandoned Exotics (Future Fleet Members?)

[Schaefft]

You may have noticed that I've also replaced the somewhat tacky looking Alpine headunit with an original BMW Z3 one. Unfortunately I cannot get it to turn on (no sound, display, button illumination etc.). The original harness is untouched, I get voltage from the battery and ignition to the harness earth as it should be, the fuse in the head unit isn't blown. I took the faceplate off to clean all the contacts on it but still no luck. I can hear a relay of some sort clicking when pressing the on button as well (plus some brief quiet noise from the speakers) so I know something is working. If anyone had any experience of their Philips/BMW/90s radio refusing to work for no apparent reason (this one had been sitting for years outside the car with the previous owner), let me know!

[hairnet]

25 minutes ago, Schaefft said:

I've spent the last few days throwing some of the bits I've hoarded at the Z3. The biggest offenders were the cheap aftermarket floor mats that had to go:

Instead we now have original BMW mats in pretty much new condition, with all the fittings needed to hold them in place properly:

Next on the list: Replace the flaking chromeline shifter and the sea of black plastic on the center console:

Center console out, not particularly hard to figure out either. Hoovered everying while in there before putting things back together.

The next steps however were a lot more faffy than I expected. To replace the plastic trim with its wood counterpart you have to disassemble everything in a very specific order, which basically means that you have to take it all apart until you can't anymore:

It doesn't help that BMW, in all their wisdom, introduced tiny differences between center consoles that received the wood trim and those that didn't, absolutely unnecessarily as well, like the little notch in the knee bolsters.

 

german complains about germans

 

[Schaefft]

17 minutes ago, hairnet said:

german complains about germans

 

I'm not immune to complaining about silly engineering decisions😂

[Schaefft]

That's right, I somehow never owned a Volvo or Saab before, which means thanks to @Rocket88 this Stiga Villa Classic is my first ownership experience of a vehicle made in Sweden.

It even says so right on the floor:

It got delivered this morning. Aside from one flat rear tire that I fixed with fire there wasn't anything wrong with it. I charged the battery (we didn't know there is a cut-out switch under the seat you need to sit on to crank it) and changed the oil and it started right up!

I haven't looked into the details of the engine yet but it seems to be your ubiquitous Briggs and Stratton 4 stroke petrol machine. Its got a slight misfire despite fresh petrol which is noticeable at lower rpm and it cut out once during my test run and was tricky to start no matter how much/little choke I gave it, as if it was starving for fuel. I'll probably need to get a carb service kit or at the very least some plugs. Let me know if you have any suppliers you can recommend for these. I did get a little area mowed though:

Lets do a little tour of it then, shall we? It's got a whole 5 speeds plus reverse, I was actually a little surprised to see that. Its doesn't hang around when in 5th!

Front wheel drive, rear wheel steering. Its basically a Honda Prelude. Nice offroad tires, too.

Dinky little gearbox and chain drive:

The deck seems to be in great shape, most of these usually seem to be rotten out. Adjustable for 9 different height settings. Doesn't seem to be the most powerful mower cutting long grass but it should do the job.

Engine speed is measured in turtoise and rabbit. You can also adjust the seat height depending on your weight, graphics are pure fat shaming:

Lets see if I can get this thing to run smoothly and turn it into a reliable mower. It certainly seems to be a solid piece of kit, they were anything but cheap when new and most of its successors are still being sold with 4 digit asking prices so I'm very happy with my purchase so far.

I've had a little detour on my petrol run with another vehicle of similar vintage:

I giant spider lowered itself from the windshield frame while driving. That'll need to leave before I take it for its upcoming test...

[cbowditch]

I think I would of crashed if a giant spider attacked me whilst driving! 

[hairnet]

On 27/04/2025 at 21:09, Schaefft said:

Bronx late April '95 or Newcastle '25?

 

 

no steam sadly

[Schaefft]

6 hours ago, cbowditch said:

I think I would of crashed if a giant spider attacked me whilst driving! 

It doesn't help that there constantly seem to be new spider webs forming around the windshield! The hoover will remain next to the car in the garage for a little while I think.

I recently got my XK8 key fobs back from the repair service, it now has two perfectly well working remotes again (one actually belongs to the XJR I think), looks like the battery contacts were the issue. No more alarms going off shortly after unlocking the doors! For under 30 quid including new batteries I cannot complain about that, its a major quality of life improvement with the Jag.

So with the nice weather outside it was a great choice for the trip to Tesco. It's a car thats very easy to like, it looks great, sounds good, has decent handling and pulling power and is slowly becoming a better and better vehicle. It's also got plenty of space for groceries (don't forget theres a backseat, too!):

The next jobs on it will be replacing a blown lowbeam bulb and sorting the parking brake. Long term I'd have to do something about the rust on the rear quarters, its all fixable and seems to be fairly solid still but the question is whether this would be the right XK8 to do this kind of work on. With so many of them around for cheap with much lower miles it would be easy to just wait for the right car that won't need paint. Then again this is a fairly well sorted example that could be kept on the road for relatively little money, unless something tries to blow up again. And if you find a cheap XK8 convertible it's unlikely to be in any better shape. The devil you know etc.

[rm36house]

Mhm, Z3 cabrio, just lovely looking car!

[Schaefft]

With yesterday's collection now completed lets have a look at the latest purchase, a somewhat down-on-its luck 2006 KB1 Honda Legend 3.5 V6 VTEC EX SH-AWD. What a name! What it means is that this is the first model year of the 4th generation Legend in pretty much fully loaded spec, a car that introduced some impressive innovations to the auto industry while completely flying under the radar of even the most die-hard enthusiasts. More about that later.

My example was purchased from the son of it's last owner, who unfortunately must have passed away sometime last year. Looking at the state of the bodywork the story certainly fits as its covered in scuffs, scratches and the occasional giffer repair. The fact that I can tell despite the whole car being covered in 5 inches of grime tells you a lot (note the bumper cover being warped from hitting something low):

It doesn't help that the car has obviously been sitting for at least a year, the cob webs are impressive:

Quite a few interior surfaces are covered in mildew, nobody who interacted with the car before me seemed concerned enough to at least wipe off the steering wheel:

The instrument cluster lit up like a christmas tree after reversing the car into position (probably a faulty PDC sensor?):

So, why the hell would I buy a car like this then? Because underneath all the easily cleaned up filth is a 75k mile, 2-owner top-spec Legend for a price you'd hardly find a beat up Civic for. The PO bought the car in early 2008 from what could only be Honda/the dealer who were its first owner. I have the original bill of sale for that transaction which I will post later.

I've been looking for a 2nd gen Honda Legend Coupe that isn't junk for a few years now, unfortunately an impossible task in the UK. However it did mean I found an ad for this car in the UK FB Owners group. As usual, I was the only remotely sane person contacting the seller so making a deal was pretty quick and easy. And so I'm now the owner of Honda's Mid-2000s tech-fest that is the KB1 Legend, a car that (at least according to Honda), introduced torque vectoring AWD (hence the often mentioned SH-AWD, which stand for Super Handling AWD) to the world.

It allows the system to send up to 70% of torque to the outside rear wheel while corning. I think in Europe it'll be the later Honda NSX that really gave Honda's AWD system a little bit of brand recognition, in the States lower end Acuras like the TL were making it much more commonplace there. All this happened long before Audi or Subaru introduced similar systems. In reality hardly any Legend owner will have made use of it (I tried yesterday) but the safety reserves must be truly enormous.

The Legend was also the car that introduced Active Cruise Control and Lane Assist to the brand, something you'll find in most cars today but was still pretty much unheard of back then outside of an S-Class/7er/A8 (where it was a rarely ticked option box). Add that and a myriad of other luxury options (heated/ventilated seats, backup camera, Bose Audio,...) plus an interior that would put your typical E60 5-Series or C6 A6 to shame and you actually have a surpringly nice executive car for a competitive price. As always, luxury cars from non-luxury brands didn't sell well, in the case of the Legend the top tax bracket and no diesel/hybrid option didn't help. It sold so poorly that at roughly 500 cars Honda managed to shift about half of what Citroen managed with the similar age C6, and maybe a 3rd of Renault VelSatis numbers? It's that rare, although the survival rate probably will be significantly higher. Mine has a few issues but I'm sure with a bit of help I can bring it back to its former glory.

[Surface Rust]

 

I love the understated capability, a proper nerds car!

I'm sure I read somewhere that these were technically capable of autonomous driving from a to b, but legally Honda were too scared to activate it. Maybe just a myth though.

[hairnet]

if you remember to bring the chauffeur nicht war?

[Schaefft]

3 hours ago, Surface Rust said:

 

I love the understated capability, a proper nerds car!

I'm sure I read somewhere that these were technically capable of autonomous driving from a to b, but legally Honda were too scared to activate it. Maybe just a myth though.

With active cruise and lane assist it would have the capabilities to a certain degree, like most cars with these options I guess. In the case of the Legend it would do it for 12 seconds apparently before you need to grab the steering wheel again😄

Anyway, have some close-up shots of the nastiness:

And now, with the car washed, it's actually looking great! Imagine what a polish will do!

I'll do the interior tomorrow, it should clean up just as nicely!

[High Jetter]

4 hours ago, Schaefft said:

Honda's AWD system 

IIRC it came to the UK first in a Prelude. Not the 1st, think 3rd though could be 2nd.

[Schaefft]

8 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

IIRC it came to the UK first in a Prelude. Not the 1st, think 3rd though could be 2nd.

The Prelude had some sort of torque vectoring on the front axle, they never came in AWD though (you might think of 4 wheel steering which the Legend doesn't have). Apparently Mitsubishi did have a vaguely similar setup on the Evo a little earlier but it might have just been the front/rear bias? Would have to look it up.

Anyway, yesterday was also the day when I visited a rather odd place near London that I just needed to visit, having tried to buy a car from there for 2 months now. It's a yard of what I assume is a larger used car dealer or multiple of them, very much out of the way of prying eyes. Most of it was a bare field but there easily must have been a few hundred cars there, including the usual used car dealer fodder. However, one corner did have what can only be described as an eclectic collection of cars:

I mean, this is only 1 of 170 Zimmer Quicksilvers, a '63 Imperial convertible and a row of other custom builds and lowriders dumped in a muddy field there. Apparently they all came from the long shut London Motor Museum, closed due to taxation issues and are now rotting away in this yard. Some can still be seen in visitor photos on Google maps.

I came for the silver Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham and peach-colored Sedan DeVille with with the most glorious brown interior I've ever seen. The latter only has 16k miles! But there was also this coach build '91 Eldorado Biarritz convertible with an amazing white interior and just 54k. The problem: All of these cars had zero paperwork, no keys, drilled out key barrels and no registration plates. That doesn't mean they are all stolen but it sure means an increased risk, costs and hassle. On top of the fact that despite their once pristine shape they've all been trashed to hell and back since arriving there.

I've negotiated a fair price for the silver Fleetwood, albeit one that was still based on the assumption that the reg plate was actually belonging to this car (it doesn't). The seller is making an attempt to find out more, I'm hoping that the previous collector just never bothered to register them with HMRC to save a few quid. Rust wise it was remarkably clean but there's no telling of its registration status or actual mileage. If I can get a reg for any of these and can actually negotiate a fair (close to scrap) price for any of these I might just have to bite the bullet. It doesn't happen very often that you get a chance to buy some very rare cars for very little. The risk is there however. If you want to see more photos of any of these or what's in the background, just let me know!

[worldofceri]

I'm sure I remember seeing that last yellow thing in a magazine years ago.  Think it has the entire roof and all the glass from a Calibra.

[High Jetter]

7 minutes ago, Schaefft said:

The Prelude had some sort of torque vectoring on the front axle, they never came in AWD though (you might think of 4 wheel steering which the Legend doesn't have

It was passive RWS initially.

[EspenO]

Those BBS RX(?) split rims on the yellow custom will be worth a fair chunk on their own.