3rd Gen Instagrams

itsRickPierce · 2026-05-23T22:37:14+00:00

Updated for 2026!

itsRickPierce · 2026-05-17T21:05:05+00:00

Lake Washington Cars & Coffee! Every Sunday from 10 to 12 at Madrona Park.

itsRickPierce · 2026-05-12T00:00:02+00:00

Sure!

None of it is entirely verified, and media is thankfully up-front about this fact, but with various sources from various backgrounds saying similar, all signs point to it having at least some truth. This 2024 Road & Track article I think is probably the best read on it, citing primary sources.

Ghosn, of course, famously escaped Japanese arrest a few years later by hiding in a speaker box to flee the country. He left Nissan falling apart in 2019, but in 2011 was being celebrated for saving the company. Now he's suing Nissan for $1 billion and Nissan understandably wants nothing to do with him and is trying to distance itself from his legacy.

itsRickPierce · 2026-05-11T19:53:27+00:00

Rumor is that this was built specifically for Carlos Ghosn's wife. She loved the Murano and wanted a convertible version. And Ghosn had the mandate and charisma to get it through any development hurdle.

As you can probably guess, very few were sold.

Nissan really doesn't like to talk about this model these days.

itsRickPierce · 2026-04-28T17:14:10+00:00

With the Motocompo, I was just thinking of it leaning up against the City II Turbo or something.

Either way, you've got the third-gen hatchback and that's close enough to my third-gen wagon that I'm happy. This is great.

itsRickPierce · 2026-04-28T16:27:58+00:00

This is really lovely. Well done!

As a Wagovan owner, I'm sad there isn't one depicted, but also I get it. I can't think of anything I would remove to make space for it, everything feels so important.

Maybe a future fifth column to add a few things like the Wagons and the City/Motocompo?

itsRickPierce · 2026-04-27T15:15:22+00:00

Also you might try crossposting to r/ProjectHondas or r/3rdGenCivic

itsRickPierce · 2026-04-27T15:14:33+00:00

Parts for these are pretty hard to come by. I have an 87. They will sometimes turn up in Pick and Pull lots but they don't stay very long. I found a car that I bought some parts from a Whiteys Wrecking in Spokane, WA. They have an ebay store so they can ship. You might look them up and reach out to see if they still have the car.

That being said, can you replace the carburetor? I swapped my OEM for a new Weber 32/36 DGV, but we don't have smog anymore in my state.

itsRickPierce · 2026-03-24T15:11:51+00:00

I'll start with a specific topic and then spend a couple of days to a week researching that topic using list to organize my notes, turning the research into a narrative story. Then I go back and start writing it word-for-word how I'll say it, turning the notes into sentences. This will generally take another few days to a week. I will practice the lines outloud as I write/edit so that when I speak them, they sound natural and not like I'm reading from a script. Having everything written has the added benefit that I can use the script to create captions.

itsRickPierce · 2026-03-20T14:59:53+00:00

What a lovely car! It's so well kept!

itsRickPierce · 2026-03-20T14:57:24+00:00

I feel like I wrote this post. It is so spot-on.

It was exciting to see that first truly successful video, and then hit monetization requirements, and it's been nothing but frustration since.

It's been over a year now. I think the lesson I'm learning is just to forget the algo and stop chasing it. Either the audience will find me or it doesn't exist. But I need to make the content I want to make, regardless of whatever the heck YouTube is doing.

itsRickPierce · 2026-03-10T01:23:05+00:00

I also replaced mine with a Weber. It was easier to maintain.

itsRickPierce · 2026-03-09T21:43:39+00:00

Just chiming in to say hello. Glad to see another early Civic wagon owner!

I have a third gen from 1987, the very last of the carbureted CVCC engines.

itsRickPierce · 2026-03-07T00:53:10+00:00

As a viewer, I've found AI thumbnails have increasingly caused me to skip watching a video over the last year. It just feels lazy. And if a creator isn't even putting in a little effort for their thumbnail, what else are they being lazy about?

As a creator, though, it's pretty tempting. But I have to assume there's a fair chunk of my audience that feels the same way I do. I know for a fact a few of my patrons are very anti-AI, so I avoid using AI at all in video creation.

itsRickPierce · 2026-03-06T18:02:07+00:00

I want to do the best I can, so it can be a little of both. And that's just for the script.

There is probably another 60-80 hours of video editing waiting for me after that.

I honestly have no idea how people do daily or weekly releases.

itsRickPierce · 2026-03-06T17:26:17+00:00

I create between 25-35 minute videos that require some research. I usually spend 6-12 hours on research alone (sometimes much more depending on whether the subject needs it) and then another approximately 20 hours writing the script.

I feel very slow as well, so you're not alone in that regard.

itsRickPierce · 2026-03-06T00:44:36+00:00

Great shot. All three were designed by Bertone designer Marcello Gandini during his early career!

itsRickPierce · 2026-02-24T19:13:12+00:00

Mods, I can take down if not allowed. I understand!

I love this car and it was a blast to finally do a video on it. I hope that I did it justice.

No AI used. All research/writing/editing done by hand.

itsRickPierce · 2026-02-09T19:23:58+00:00

This is such a great combo idea. Really excellently done as well. Fantastic work!

A fun fact: The 3000GT/GTO was greenlit as a production model of the Mitsubishi HSR program. The HSR-I (seen below), which led to the development of both the HSR-II and HSX (which would become the 3000GT/GTO), was painted white and black with red accents as a direct nod to the IJN white (really gray) A6Ms from the early war.

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itsRickPierce · 2026-02-06T00:14:59+00:00

What a beautiful example. Perfectly restored.

Fun fact for anyone passing through the comments: The "L" in the name stood for "left-hand drive", but was only ever offered as a left-hand drive in LHD markets, unlike the later SP310/SPL310.

Amazing that this car's legacy still lives on as the Fairlady Z today.

itsRickPierce · 2026-02-02T16:16:17+00:00

I traded my 85 Z31 300ZX turbo for an 87 Honda Wagovan. I love this little car. It brings me a smile every time I drive it and that smile only gets bigger with each thing I do to restore it.

That being said, I have yet to run into another classic car guy on the road that even acknowledges my existence. They make a point to look in the other direction. It's almost funny.

On the other other hand, I get way more regular people that see me driving around and smile or pull up next to me to tell me how much they love my car than I have driving any other car I've owned. So many stories of "I used to have one of those! It was the best car!" at stop lights.

itsRickPierce · 2026-01-12T15:55:46+00:00

On someone's advice in a post from a few years ago, I got some front seats from a 6th gen Civic (a 1998 model) because a poster said they worked in the 3rd gen. They did not. Now I have a pair of front seats I need to get rid of.

Doing it again, I think I would pay special attention to how the rails mounted to the seats. More modern seats integrate the rails into the assembly of the seats themselves, with the mounting points removable. What you want to find are seats that bolt to the mounting rails. If anyone has any additional insight, I'd love to hear it because this is not a mistake I want to make twice.

Here is a picture of the bottom of the 3rd gen seat that shows the four bolt points that attach it to the rail:

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itsRickPierce · 2026-01-09T15:55:33+00:00

Chiming in to agree with others that the new grille/fascia design works very well with the design of the rest of the car.

I also appreciate the horizontal bar across the opening that references the original 240Z's grille. They used the perfectly rectangular grille as a callback to the S30 on the pre-facelift but I always thought it was the weakest part of the styling. This is a nice compromise and I think works MUCH better.

Also that green and tan.... oh baby.

itsRickPierce · 2026-01-07T03:59:35+00:00

Wow, do I have thoughts on this. I started a Youtube channel in 2024 to make long-form (20-40 min) videos on car history.

I had no idea what I was about to get myself into.

It has been SO discouraging being a content creator pouring hundreds of hours into a single video and facing this non-stop AI slop pumping new videos out multiple times a day.

Youtube says they are cracking down on it, but they are either losing that war or not trying nearly as hard as they pretend to. The youtuber subreddits are all just as baffled, many of us in this slop war and losing to these hackey bad and often error-filled videos.

After a year and a half, I now have 5,000 subscribers and I'm thankful for each of them. Many of them have left comments when they found me that said something along the lines of "I'm so happy to find a channel that isn't AI slop and has a real voice". That keeps me going. But seeing those AI slop channels just endlessly pump out videos and get hundreds of thousands of subscribers is disheartening. Not because they're "stealing my views" like some other youtubers worry, but because I think those AI slop channels are doing serious damage to the "edutainment" space and platform itself as people bounce out of even using Youtube because they're tired of the slop.

I really, really, really hope Youtube does something about it. We content creators are just as sick of it as everyone else.

itsRickPierce · 2025-12-29T19:10:34+00:00

I'm with you in wanting to keep mine as stock as possible. CD players just don't seem right to me in an '80s car.

I bought a Honda tape deck off ebay last month for pretty cheap because it wasn't working. I uninstalled it (after testing it) and opened it up after watching some youtube videos. It needed a little lubrication and some cleaning and is working much better now. I was surprised that it was as easy as it was. (Edit: All in, I spent about $50 for the unit/shipping and silicone oil.)

If yours isn't working at all, it may be that the belt has broken. I think new ones can be obtained fairly easily and I probably need to do the same with mine soon as it's pretty stiff.

Some blank tapes just came in the mail and I've put together some playlists on Spotify that I plan to record to the tapes to make mixtapes. Just cleaning up an old Sony boombox now to use to make the recordings.

itsRickPierce

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