Yahoo Autos How I was reunited with a car I sold 16 years ago
Back in 2006, I did a very unusual thing: I ordered an Acura. While ordering your car is always unusual in this country, doing so for an Acura (or Honda) is even stranger given how few combinations of color and options there are. The chances of finding what you want at a dealer are high. Despite the odds, though, I needed to order my 2006 Acura TSX with the combination of Arctic Blue paint, touchscreen navigation and, crucially, the six-speed manual transmission. Three months later, it was in the driveway.
Fifteen months later, however, it was out of the driveway. I had just got my dream job as an automotive journalist and no longer needed a daily driver. The TSX would just be collecting dust and depreciation down in a garage, I hadn’t exactly grown attached to it after so little time, and it certainly didn’t seem like a collectible car to hang onto for posterity. After months of trying to sell it (turns out all those dealers were on to something with their inventory builds), a nice young man named Chanc flew to Los Angeles with a check in hand. I took off my RIZ plates, he slid that manual transmission into first, and off my TSX went to its new home in Utah never to be heard or seen from again.
Until Christmas Eve of last year. While enjoying an egg nog, I pulled out my phone to find I was tagged in the below Instagram post by someone named Tyson Hugie. It took me a second to process what I was seeing: somebody handing over keys to an Arctic Blue Acura TSX with a red bow on top. “Wait, what?” I exclaimed.
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“I’m an Acura brand aficionado, some call me an addict,” Hugie explained to me on an episode of the Autoblog Podcast recorded in the TSX itself. That’s putting it lightly, and it’s an addiction that’s resulted in quite the following on Instagram and YouTube, where he documents his collection/projects.
“I’ve been a fan of Honda and Acura products since the late ‘90s. Whenever I come across a particularly rare model, it kind of stays with me a long time.”
His collecting started back in 2011 after Acura threw a red-carpet party for him, and more notably, the Acura Legend he owned that rolled over 500,000 miles. It has since crested 585,400. Nearly 30 other Acuras and Hondas have come, gone and stayed alongside it in Hugie’s garage since then. The list of cars that resided there at some point in 2022 alone is kind of awe-inspiring: a ’92 NSX, two Integras (a ’92 GS-R and ’89 LS 5-Door), five Legends (’88 and ’94 Sedan and ’90, ’94, ’95 Coupes), an’02 RSX Type-S, a ’96 SLX (look it up kids), an ’07 TL Type S, a ’21 TLX Type S, an ’89 Prelude Si and an ’04 S2000. Oh, and a 2006 Acura TSX 6-Speed in Arctic Blue.
“My brother had a classmate from southern Utah who I knew had a blue 2006 TSX six-speed manual,” Hugie said. “That car was one I’ve always had on my checklist in the back of my mind. How cool is that color? You never see them.”
He first saw it in 2013 while passing through southern Utah, in that ’92 NSX no less.
“The TSX still looked pretty darn nice. It was only seven years old at a time,” Hugie continued. “But the following decade wasn’t as friendly to it. (Chanc) ended up buying an EV as his daily driver; the TSX was relegated to side parking at his house, and the sun in southern Utah was not friendly to it. The paint got absolutely destroyed. I don’t think the car was as actively exercised as much, so that contributed some deterioration as well.”
This definitely isn’t the only TSX out there with paint that looks like this. In fact, it’s more the rule than the exception. To be frank, Honda and Acura paint, at least from this era and earlier, wasn’t exactly the best.
“I was after Chanc to let me give this car a good home,” Hugie said. “I knew full well that this car was a rare spec to begin with, and I think there’s always some heartstrings being tugged at that this car deserved better than to eventually just be on Craigslist sold to some college kid who’d run it into the ground.”
He finally pried the TSX out of Chanc’s hands last December with 187,673 miles on the clock, which is, of course, when I was alerted to “my” TSX’s continued existence. Although I was never especially attached to it, I couldn’t have been happier that Chanc had enjoyed it so much over the years and still had it. That it would continue to live on with Hugie or whomever he eventually sells it to is even better. I’m sure most of you reading this would similarly love to know that an old automotive friend was still being cared for instead of being abused or rotting away in some junkyard awaiting a photoshoot by Murilee Martin.
The story does not end there, however. There was work to be done. First things on the checklist were basic safety items: tires, brakes and fluids. Eventually, he would replace both headlight assemblies and fog lamps, the clutch, battery and brake pedal pads, plus resurface the flywheel. He even found new OEM floor mats. The big-ticket item, however, and the most important, was the body work, which sent the car to Apex Wet Werks in Phoenix for two months. That included a full repaint of the Arctic Blue Pearl, plus the addition of a decklid spoiler and rare European Accord R body kit. Oh, and the deletion of the window tint I had dealer-installed.
