Ridiculous Rebadges: An Acura Cimarron

"Amoore100" (amoore100) 08/01/2016 at 22:15 • Filed to: Ridiculous Rebadges, Rebadges Revisited, Honda Civic, Acura EL, Acura CSX

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Welcome to Ridiculous Rebadges, a series of articles in which I go through and examine the details and circumstances surrounding some of the more infamous and some of the more esoteric vehicular rebadges throughout automotive history.

This is a Rebadge Revisited. See the article’s inspiration from DeMuro’s blog Plays With Cars here:

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The Cadillac Cimarron was a terrible car. Not only was it not much of a Cadillac, being noted as nothing more than a “Cavalier with leather”, the Cimarron née Cavalier was rather poor at being a car as well with hit-and-miss quality control, weak engines, and dreary interiors. On the other hand, for every story of a Cavalier conking out before an important job interview, there’s a tale being told of a Civic which has never failed to start in its twenty year lifetime, even on that morning when Grandma left it out with the door light on in the snow. It seems that if you’re going to build a budget price luxury car, you had better start with a pretty solid car to begin with.

That’s exactly what Acura of Canada did back in 1997. With the big three Japanese brands making big bucks off of cheating Americans by selling Maximas and Camries with more leather and fake wood, the Canadians wanted in on the action and conceived the Acura EL, a Civic with a pair of calipers glued everywhere an ‘H’ would have otherwise been found.

Except it wasn’t. The EL had a completely different front and rear fascia from the contemporary Civic, one that more closely resembled the fifth-gen Accord, albeit much smaller.

The reason this first EL wasn’t a complete copy of the USDM Civic was because it mimicked the Isuzu rebadge (the Gemeni) of the Honda Domani, itself a luxurious Civic sold only in Japan. There is a large possibility that it was actually the Acura EL that came first and it was the Isuzu which borrowed its appearance, but either way, that’s the reason why the front clip of the first EL was nothing like that of the sixth-generation USDM Civic.

The interior of the EL was apparently sufficiently sumptuous to merit its several grand higher price tag (with features like amber LED lighting and a tachometer as standard), and Canadians bought them in droves–the little compact actually was Acura CA’s best seller between 1997 and 2003, making up 51% of the brand’s sales in 1997 alone.

A successor was definitely needed to succeed this sales success. By this next generation of the EL, however, the Honda Domani no longer existed and Isuzu’s car division was as good as dead, thus there was no one from whom to borrow a new front and rear clip off of to pass the Civic off as an Acura.

Thus, this generation looked a lot more like a Honda Civic just pointier, which is to say slightly more handsome than the generic blob that was the seventh-gen Civic.

The mid-cycle facelift in 2004 brought new taillights, new foglights, a new steering wheel, audio system improvements, and wood grain!

It seems that this second EL followed the Cimarron philosophy a bit too closely, though, and Acura decided to change more than just some lighting and logos the next time around.

What they did this time was start with a USDM Civic sedan, then rework the entire front and rear to achieve a more upscale, premium look. After Acura CA had finished all of the altercations it wanted to make to the USDM Civic in order to replace their best-seller, Honda Japan saw the finished project and admired it so much that they chose to base the JDM Civic on the Canadian CSX.

Not only did the JDM Civic and CSX share the same front and rear fascia, both were offered with the RSX’s high-revving K20Z2 2.0 I4 which was not available in the USDM Civic. A few luxury features were added as well, ranging from optional HID headlights and navigation (neither of which could be had in a standard Canadian Civic) as well as improvements similar to earlier ELs (chrome door handles, better audio, etc.) Paddle shifters could also reportedly be had with automatic CSX models, and a Type-S model was available as a luxury Civic Si variant.

In 2009 the CSX was facelifted with Acura’s ‘Power Plenum’ grille (whatever that means), more commonly known as ‘the beak’.

The car was phased out in 2011 and replaced with the ILX, which we Americans finally get stateside. Funny how some Candians who saw the chance to make a better Cimarron created ripples which brought Civic all the way back to Japan and back again.

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Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Amoore100 08/01/2016 at 22:26

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Damn that ‘97 is infinitely better looking than the Civic. I want it.

Amoore100 > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 08/01/2016 at 22:31

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Someone around here was swapping the front end of one of them onto a Civic. Seems easy enough, although you could just sneak one in via Kijiji . Call it a ‘97 Civic and put ‘H’ badges on it...

facw > Amoore100 08/01/2016 at 22:31

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Question, who the hell thought that black and tan Civic interior was a good idea? It’s astoundingly awful.

dogisbadob > Amoore100 08/01/2016 at 22:32

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There is nothing wrong with that. I love 4-cylinder small luxry cars!

Acura stopped selling the Integra sedan when the EL first came out. But that first-gen 1.6EL is fucking awesome! leather and heated seats and heated mirrors—unavailable on any US Civic, plus the cool orange gauges. The JDM Domani cred is cool, too.

And I’d totally rock a CSX Type-S. 8000 rpm with heated seats and leather hell yeah!!!!

Too bad the ILX blows, and automatic-only. Acura is fucking stupid. A relatively low-cost compact luxury sporty car was their thing! They told 2/3 of their customers to fuck off by killing their more economical offerings!

Comparing it to a Cimarron is false because the underlying Civic is a great car, so naturally the CSX is, too. OTOH, the J-body is and was a piece of shit, so of course charging double for the same piece of shit is twice as shitty.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > Amoore100 08/01/2016 at 22:33

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I prefer to refer to this as the Honcura Civic EL/CSX/ILX

Your boy, BJR > dogisbadob 08/01/2016 at 22:40

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I'm 100% sure I've DRIVEN a manual ILX

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Amoore100 08/01/2016 at 22:41

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I’ve seen several front end swaps running around locally. One guy had the front end swapped onto his ‘98 hatched. Looked the business except it had double-digits of camber and was completely undrivable. They didn’t even refer to it as camber. It was “tilted”

The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock > Amoore100 08/01/2016 at 22:46

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THE CSX IS NOT THE JDM CIVIC. THE CSX WAS DESIGNED FOR CANADA, AND THE JAPANESE LIKED IT SO MUCH THEY BASED THEIR CIVIC OFF IT. THE JDM HONDA CIVIC IS BASED ON THE CDM “CIVIC”. DAMMIT, GET THAT STRAIGHT.

dogisbadob > Your boy, BJR 08/01/2016 at 22:51

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Which they stopped selling last year

Amoore100 > The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock 08/01/2016 at 22:59

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You’re right. It says right there.

Amoore100 > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 08/01/2016 at 23:07

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Hateful IMO but hey, it ain’t my car.

Amoore100 > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly 08/01/2016 at 23:08

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Honcura CiEILSX

FTFY

Amoore100 > dogisbadob 08/01/2016 at 23:18

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The Cimarron comparison was simply because the EL is basically a fully-optioned Civic whereas even Toyota put in some effort by the late ‘90s and gave us the Windom as the Lexus ES instead of the Camry. Unfortunately, while a luxurious bad economy car is twice as shitty, I’m afraid a luxurious excellent economy car isn’t necessarily twice as good.

Yeah, Acura can literally fuck off right now. They were supposed to be the Japanese Audi with their funny transverse engines and nimble platforms but ended up being Japan’s Oldsmobile instead.

Anyways, I would love a two car garage with a Type S and an Si. I’m the weird OCD kind of person that would spend hours trying to figure out every last difference before just saying, “fuck it” and going for a drive.

Amoore100 > facw 08/01/2016 at 23:18

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Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > Amoore100 08/01/2016 at 23:31

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CELILXSEX!!!

jvirgs drives a Subaru > Amoore100 08/01/2016 at 23:42

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The beak actually works on the last gen csx

Amoore100 > jvirgs drives a Subaru 08/01/2016 at 23:45

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But it still looks worse than the alternative ‘normal’ grille.

Amoore100 > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly 08/01/2016 at 23:47

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Perfect other than it makes me think of this:

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http://jalopnik.com/honda-once-mad…

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Amoore100 08/02/2016 at 07:00

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I’m sad because if the wheels weren’t #tiltedlyfe that would be a fantastic looking VIP car.

RT > Amoore100 08/02/2016 at 09:04

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Great write up, but there’s one thing that confuses me.

Was the Domani actually intended to be a more luxurious Civic?

Because if you trace back its roots...

It’s a Triumph Acclaim.

I always assumed it was more of a by-product of the British Leyland/Rover deal than an actual purpose built luxury car (the Integra seemed to fill that gap better).

MonkeePuzzle > Amoore100 08/02/2016 at 12:11

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unfortunately this is the interior of the 5th gen civic, not the 6th gen upon which the EL is built.

the ELs interior did get some nice updates, a slightly different centre console wiht an added lower portion, but more importantly, it is the only way to get a fully black left hand drive civic interior.

Amoore100 > MonkeePuzzle 08/02/2016 at 12:51

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Thanks for the correction! I knew something seemed a bit out of place between the two...

Amoore100 > RT 08/02/2016 at 12:54

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Well for most Asian buyers foreign (especially European) = luxurious, and the British did have a reputation for comfort if little else. It seems like it was a stop gap model like the Passat CC which is like a Passat just slightly better.

MonkeePuzzle > Amoore100 08/02/2016 at 13:06

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I’m havinga hard time finding stock images, but the 96-98 6th gen US civics had this dash

while the 99/00 US 6th Gen civic got a slightly revised dash with a double din radio opening, and servos replacing wires to control HVAC

RT > Amoore100 08/02/2016 at 16:10

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Fair enough I think I understand now, it’s just amusing to me.

anon-sxmcyecofnu1eocpqsk9iq > Amoore100 09/02/2016 at 03:14

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I live in Canada and I honestly had no idea that these Acuras weren’t sold in the United States. I see them all the time and it’s pretty normal. The Isuzu though, that’s weird to look at.

Amoore100 > anon-sxmcyecofnu1eocpqsk9iq 09/02/2016 at 03:45

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Yeah, Isuzu was really into the business of rebadging everything they could get their hands on between the late ‘90s and the early 2000's , and even before that.