Honda's red (Ballade Sports) CR-X!

As promised in the Honda Collection Hall post a few weeks back; the Ballade Sports CR-X.. in a little more detail..!

I had taken the opportunity to take a heap of pictures of this car, as I was stoked to see one up close. Not sure if its a grass-is-always-greener thing; but the first generation CR-X never made it to the Australian market when new, which likely on makes me want them more.

The Ballade Sports CR-X was based on the 2nd generation Honda Ballade - itself based obviously on the 3rd generation Civic. The Ballade was basically an up-spec version of the Civic, which included the pop-up headlight front-end seen on this car.
This first generation of Ballade Sports CR-X was sold as (and alongside) the Ballade as a sports variant, and ran through until 1987. The second generation although still obviously Civic based, was simply a CR-X.

The car on display in the Honda Museum was a 1983, 1.5litre car - so first year / pre-upate, and the upper of two trim levels available..

 ..despite being a 1.5litre car, it's fairly low with options..

..as the above brochure pages show. No sunroof, and steel wheels - which might have been a missed opportunity when those epic four-hole alloys were available..!

..still got that great check interior though..

No sunroof, but interesting little panel towards the back of the roof...

These first generation CR-X's didn't have the rad glass-panel in the lower part of the rear hatch, as seen on the second generation cars; but the otherwise neat rear end of these is still unique and easily identifiable..

I prefer the first generation CR-X's sunken, semi-covered headlights though! Unfortunately these seem to have been revised away later in the first generation CR-X's production run; replaced by a fixed, flush, headlight unit.

aaaand finishing off with two more semi-relevant brochure pictures - this time from Mugen. CF-48's, MR-5's, and an incredibly cool (9piece!?) wide-body kit!


Done. A sweet little featherweight Honda.